THE LIBRARY 
 
 OF 
 
 THE UNIVERSITY 
 
 OF CALIFORNIA 
 
 LOS ANGELES

 
 
 ^u^. 
 
 I f y >r
 
 /S97
 
 AN INTIMATE VIEW 
 
 OP 
 
 ROBERT G. INGERSOLL 
 
 BY 
 
 I. NEWTON BAKER, A.M. 
 
 More than any man of his day he wrote and spoke and 
 labored for an unshackled healthy brain, an untrammelled 
 truthful tongue. 
 
 NEW YORK 
 
 C. p. FARRELL 
 
 1920
 
 Copyright, 1920, 
 
 by 
 C. P. FARRELL
 
 
 DEDICATION, 
 
 To the memory of the great and good 
 Ingersoll; to his peerless wife and daugh- 
 ters whom he exalted above divinities; to 
 his faithful relatives^ Mr, and Mrs. Farrell, 
 and to all his devoted family — this wholly 
 inadequate portraiture. 
 
 /Y5 
 
 rQ 
 
 ! 1121237 
 
 i
 
 PUBLISHER'S NOTE. 
 
 This well-entitled "Intimate View," although 
 really a grateful Tribute, was originally pre- 
 pared by Mr. Baker shortly after Mr. IngersolFs 
 death, as a memorial for the private possession 
 of the Ingersoll family. By their permission, 
 and on the urgency of friends, it is now given to 
 the public in a revised and somewhat enlarged 
 form. It speaks eloquently for itself, and 
 is submitted in the confident belief that it will 
 be warmly welcomed and highly appreciated in 
 a wide circle of readers. It will certainly be 
 regarded as a thoughtful and true if necessarily 
 partial exposition of the views of Mr. Ingersoll, 
 and a finely drawn portrait of the personality 
 of the Great Agnostic of the century. 
 
 C. P. Farrell. 
 New York, Nov. 1, 1919.
 
 EGBERT G. INGERSOLL 
 
 AN INTIMATE VIEW. 
 
 I. 
 
 Since the passing of this great and good, this 
 loving and lovable man, many eloquent tributes 
 to his memory have been written and spoken. 
 These tributes have come from all parts of the 
 world and from all classes and conditions of 
 men. They have reflected through the press, the 
 platform, the pulpit and private correspondence 
 the general and genuine esteem and admiration 
 in which Mr. Ingersoll was held. Many who 
 opposed, or seemed to oppose, his religious 
 views, and resented, or seemed to resent, his 
 manner of expressing them, have in their finer 
 moods, unheated by the fires of controversy, 
 admitted and admired the strength and sincer- 
 ity of his convictions, the wonderful way in 
 which he maintained them, and the purity and 
 exaltation of his character and purpose. Even 
 theological bitterness was silenced in the pres-
 
 10 ROBERT G. INGERSOLL 
 
 ence of death, or turned, as in some instances, 
 into generous eulogium. Magnanimous foes 
 whom he had defeated in the forum of debate, 
 conceded the greatness and goodness of the 
 man and acknowledged the magnitude and value 
 of the work he did in the world. 
 
 NO ADEQUATE PORTRAITURE. 
 
 It would seem, therefore, that little can be 
 added, that nothing more can be said worth the 
 saying, that the field has been harvested. It is 
 only in the hope of garnering grains ungathered 
 by other gleaners that the present sketch has 
 been attempted. It does not aspire to the rank 
 of extended biography. Its simple purpose is to 
 show Mr. Ingersoll as he appeared to one who 
 had unusual opportunities of knowing him,— 
 to one whose high privilege it was to be in al- 
 most daily contact with him for many years. 
 The writer is only too conscious that even with 
 this advantage what skill he may have must 
 fall far short of any adequate portraiture. He 
 covets a fineness of perception, a keenness and 
 breadth of intellectual vision, a balance of judg- 
 ment, a strength of statement and a grace of 
 style he has not, fitly to undertake the study. 
 Only a genius can portray a genius. Only a
 
 AN INTIMATE VIEW 11 
 
 master of expression can express a master, and 
 the writer has been but an unpretending pupil 
 sitting at a great master's feet. 
 
 Any faithful sketch of such a man from such 
 a source must therefore be a eulogy. Admira- 
 tion cannot be restrained, feeling cannot be re- 
 pressed, nor can the flow of truthful phrase be 
 checked when a loving pupil wields the brush or 
 guides the pen. No matter from what point of 
 view he sees the subject, the same commanding 
 figure is before him. All the rays of white light 
 focussed on Mr. Ingersoll reveal him as a man 
 of the highest, strongest, finest mental and mo- 
 ral fibre, — such a man, indeed, as Nature bears 
 but once among countless millions of her human 
 children. 
 
 My acquaintance with Mr. Ingersoll began 
 soon after the death of his brother Ebon, and 
 while the immortal words spoken at the funeral 
 were still thrilling through the world. Litera- 
 ture has no parallel to this tribute by a brother 
 living to a brother dead. These brothers were 
 lovers, and never failed each day on reaching 
 their office to give a warm embrace. The sign 
 they first hung out as law partners became a 
 sacred thing to Robert, and in all his changes of 
 location, from Peoria to Washington, to New
 
 12 ROBERT G. INGERSOLL 
 
 York, — wherever he chanced to be, — he kept 
 that modest little sign in constant view from the 
 desk in his private office. 
 
 I entered this office in 1879 as Mr. Ingersoll's 
 secretary, and remained with him continuously 
 until in 1892, a period of nearly fourteen years. 
 During all this time it was my privilege to be 
 with him in business hours, in days of leisure, 
 of travel and of social intercourse, to be honored 
 by his friendship, entrusted with his confidence, 
 and, with my wife, enrolled almost a member 
 of that beautiful family of which he was creator 
 and inspirer, sun and shield.
 
 AN INTIMATE VIEW 13 
 
 11. 
 AS A LAWYER. 
 
 As a young lawyer in Illinois Mr. IngersoU 
 quickly rose to eminence. In a few short years 
 he attained to the highest office in his profes- 
 sion, the Attorney-Generalship of the State, — a 
 State that has given to the Nation many of her 
 legal and intellectual giants. He won wide 
 fame in his trial of the celebrated Munn case 
 and of other legal contests in Illinois. Coming 
 to the Nation's capital his ability as a lawyer 
 was at once recognized and he entered upon a 
 large and lucrative practice. This practice was 
 for the most part and by preference in the 
 Executive Departments, although he was fre- 
 quently in the United States Supreme and Dis- 
 trict Courts. 
 
 THE STAR ROUTE CASES. 
 
 In the much misunderstood Star Route Cases 
 Mr. IngersoU was leading counsel for the de- 
 fense, and by unanimous consent was chosen 
 chairman of the defendant's attorneys in all
 
 14 ROBERT G. INGERSOLL 
 
 their conferences. His masterly conduct of 
 those cases through a prolonged and intricate 
 trial covering two and more years, is a matter 
 of history and record. His associates were filled 
 with admiration and amazement at the legal 
 ability he displayed. His knowledge of the law, 
 his almost infallible judgment, his prodigious 
 memory of the facts extending to the minutest 
 details and rendering him for the most part in- 
 dependent of the record, his impregnable logic, 
 his lucid statments of the law^ and the testi- 
 mony and his forensic power — all marked him 
 as easily chief among the eminent counsel in 
 that contest. 
 
 JURISTS' ESTIMATES. 
 
 The late Judge Jeremiah Wilson, one of the 
 brightest lights of the Washington bar, said to 
 the writer: "What most impressed me in Col. 
 Ingersoll's course throughout the trial and com- 
 pelled my profound admiration, was not his legal 
 learning, wide and accurate as I knew that to 
 be, but his inimitable tact, his unerring judg- 
 ment of the course to be pursued day by day, 
 the witnesses to be examined, the weight to be 
 given to their testimony, the points to be includ- 
 ed and emphasized as vital and the parts to be
 
 AN INTIMATE VIEW 15 
 
 excluded as irrelevant, incompetent and imma- 
 terial, — in short, his marvellous management 
 of the entire case. He absolutely made no mis- 
 takes, as the outcome proved. We seldom over- 
 ruled him, and when we did found later that he 
 was right and we were wrong." 
 
 The Honorable Walter Davidge, dean of the 
 Washington bar, who had been selected by his 
 associates to follow Mr. Ingersoirs closing ad- 
 dress to the jury, said: "May it please your Hon- 
 or, it was understood among counsel that both 
 Colonel Ingersoll and myself should have the 
 privilege of addressing the jury if in the judg- 
 ment of either it should be thought necessary. I 
 have felt such a deep interest in this case that 
 I have almost hoped he might leave unoccupied 
 some portion of the field of argument. I have 
 listened to every word that has fallen from his 
 lips. He has filled the v/hole area of the case 
 with such matchless ability and eloquence, that 
 I have no ground upon which I could stand 
 in making any further argument. I can add 
 nothing whatever to v/hat he has said. I need 
 not add that every syllable he has uttered 
 receives my grateful endorsement." 
 
 The Capital f a leading journal in Washing- 
 ton, commenting on Colonel IngersolFs closing
 
 16 ROBERT G. INGERSOLL 
 
 address to the Jury in the first Star Route trial, 
 said : 
 
 "The most characteristic feature of the trial 
 was the marvelously powerful speech of Colonel 
 Robert G. Ingersoll before the Jury and the 
 Judge. People who knew this gifted gentleman 
 only superficially, had supposed that he was 
 merely superficial as a lawyer. While ac- 
 knowledging his remarkable ability as an orator, 
 and his vast accomplishments as a speaker, they 
 doubted the depth of his power. They heard 
 him, and the doubt ceased. It can be said of 
 Ingersoll, as was written of Castelar, that his 
 eloquent utterances are as the finely-fashioned 
 ornamental designs on a Damascus blade, — the 
 blade cuts as keenly, and the embellishments 
 beautify without retarding its power." 
 
 AN EPISODE. 
 
 On one occasion the venerable Judge Wylie 
 refused a motion made by Mr. Ingersoll on the 
 ground that he had already decided and denied 
 it. "But your Honor twice ruled the other way." 
 "Impossible !" said the Court. "I think the re- 
 cord will show," and the Colonel handed the 
 book to the Judge, with page and lines indicated. 
 The Court reddening replied: "Well, the fact 
 that I ruled in defendants* favor ought to be
 
 AN INTIMATE VIEW 17 
 
 satisfactory to them, and that I twice so ruled 
 should not weaken the ruling nor lessen their 
 satisfaction." 
 
 The triumphs he scored over opposing 
 counsel in their many legal tilts, the heated and 
 sometimes bitter attacks and retorts, — never 
 invited by Mr. Ingersoll, but out of which he 
 emerged victorious, — his uniform fairness and 
 candor, the accuracy of his statements when 
 challenged, showing his thorough command of 
 every detail, and finally his matchless summing 
 up, made their irresistible impression on court 
 and jury alike, and in the teeth of popular 
 opinion and clamor fomented and fed by false 
 press reports, and against all the power, pres- 
 tige and pursuit of two National Administra- 
 tions, won the case. 
 
 HIS RESPECT FOR THE LAW. 
 
 Though by choice a lawyer and in practice 
 an eminently sucessful one, he did not seem, in 
 later life, at least, to have retained his early 
 ardor for the profession. For the law itself he 
 never lost respect and reverence. To him it was 
 the bulwark of Justice, the safeguard of Lib- 
 erty, and he gloried in its history and achieve- 
 ments. But for the perversions of the law he
 
 18 ROBERT G. INGERSOLL 
 
 felt only contempt and indignation. He hated 
 all dishonest and degenerate methods in its 
 practice. The law, he held, should be invoked 
 only in the interest of truth and justice, but was 
 too often made the tool of injustice, oppression 
 and wrong. He scorned to resort to the sophis- 
 tries and subterfuges employed by many in the 
 profession. He did not care to win a case mere- 
 ly for the fee involved or for the glory of win- 
 ning it. He wanted the Right to triumph and 
 could rejoice only when Victory perched on the 
 heights of Truth. 
 
 Again, he chafed under the fetters and limi- 
 tations of the modern practice. He believed 
 that justice was often entangled in the net of 
 technicalities. He could not endure the me- 
 chanical reliances on books, the cast-iron moulds, 
 the cut and dried forms, canned and labelled 
 processes, papers and preparations ready-made 
 for every case and all occasions. Most of these 
 so-called helps he considered hindrances that 
 crippled the law and made it limp and halt 
 where it ought to leap and run. "The law's 
 delay," he said, "is more often the lawyer's 
 delay and should not be tolerated." Modern 
 methods he believed consumed time, stifled 
 originality, repressed individual initiative and
 
 AN INTIMATE VIEW 19 
 
 tended to make of the law a mere puppet, an 
 echo of old opinions, rulings and decisions, a 
 slave to precedent. He hated the shackles of 
 precedent. He hated all shackles. He wanted 
 to be free to decide for himself in the law no 
 less than in religion and in all other realms of 
 thought and action. He was original, creative, 
 independent. He examined rulings of courts 
 but did not necessarily follow them. He has 
 said to me, "One Judge contradicts another and 
 between them I make my own decisions. If the 
 law is not my way in this contention, it ought 
 to be," and on this line he fought and won many 
 a legal battle. 
 
 DRUDGERY OF THE LAW. 
 
 Quite naturally it followed that he could not 
 submit to the drudgery of the law, the loss of 
 valuable time poring over State and Federal 
 Reports, and while his library was a rich store- 
 house of all legal lore he yet often displayed 
 impatience when obliged to resort to it. His 
 clerks relieved him of that drudgery. Never- 
 theless, in spite of his natural antipathies, and 
 fully conscious of his quick mental perceptions — 
 his genius for all acquisition — ^he acknowledged
 
 20 ROBERT G. INGERSOLL 
 
 his debt to that early study and application 
 which had so thoroughly drilled and equipped 
 him for his profession. In his young man- 
 hood he had read and studied with industry and 
 enthusiasm, even to the breaking down of his 
 physical health. He knew the law in all its 
 phases, — its history, principles and interpreta- 
 tions — as few men knew it. And he knew hov/ 
 to apply it. He was a maker of opinion and its 
 interpreter in nearly every continent and pro- 
 vince of human thought. 
 
 HIS QUICK PERCEPTION. 
 
 His marvellously quick and clear perception 
 of any problem or proposition, no matter how 
 intricate or involved, seemed little less than 
 miraculous. A prospective client once came to 
 him with a budget of typewritten matter and 
 asked if he would go through it. "Certainly; 
 let me see it." "Very well. Colonel, Til leave it 
 and call in a day or two for your answer." 
 "Nonsense ; wait a minute." Then turning over 
 the pages one by one he handed back the screed, 
 saying, "You have a good cause, and if you wish 
 I will undertake it for you." "But you don't 
 know it yet, Colonel?" "Oh yes I do." "Why, 
 it includes a good many knotty questions and
 
 AN INTIMATE VIEW 21 
 
 has lots of figuring in it." 'To be sure; I have 
 gone over them; haven't I just read it all? To 
 convince you, I will restate it," and then point 
 by point Mr. Ingersoll rehearsed the subject- 
 matter, not omitting the figured calculations. 
 ^'Amazing, Colonel; I believe you could see 
 through a brick wall ! It has taken me and my 
 assistants days to prepare that statement, and 
 you have mastered it in a few minutes!" He 
 tried the case and got the verdict. 
 
 INGERSOLL AND CONKLING. 
 
 Another incident will illustrate this X-ray 
 faculty of Mr. Ingersoll's mind. In a telegraph 
 suit before Judge Wallace at Syracuse, New 
 York, the late Roscoe Conkling and the Colonel 
 were associate counsel. On the train from New 
 York, Mr. Conkling said: "Fm ashamed to con- 
 fess it, Colonel, but I really haven't had time 
 properly to examine the papers in this case and 
 I don't feel prepared to argue it; you must do 
 it, or we will have to move a postponement." 
 "No, no, that won't do, it will damage our suit; 
 let me see the papers." Mr. Conkling produced 
 them. The Colonel examined them. Before 
 reaching Syracuse he handed them back, say-
 
 22 ROBERT G. INGERSOLL 
 
 ing : "Conkling, I will argue this case, although, 
 as you know, my throat is bad to-day and I'll 
 have to whisper my argument in the Court's 
 ear." "I'm extremely sorry, Colonel, to put this 
 burden on you, but I see no other way. Do you 
 think you understand the case with this brief 
 inspection?" "Perfectly; as well as if I had 
 studied it for weeks," and for the next few miles 
 he laid it all out before his astonished auditor. 
 "Is that the way you prepare your briefs. 
 Colonel?" "Why not? If I can't catch on to 
 a case by reading it, as soon as the Court does 
 by hearing it, I'd make a nice Judge or lawyer, 
 wouldn't I?" "You're a strange man. Colonel, 
 I can't fathom you !" The case was argued in a 
 whisper, and won. 
 
 This remark of the Senator was meant as a 
 compliment — the highest he could pay to the 
 ability and genius of a brother lawyer. I cannot 
 forget his look and manner of unfeigned admira- 
 tion, as he expressed himself. Not long after — 
 alas, too soon ! — when the New York Legislature 
 requested Colonel Ingersoll to deliver before 
 them a memorial address on Senator Conkling, 
 the Colonel delivered the noblest tribute to his 
 departed friend and associate ever heard in a 
 legislative hall.
 
 AN INTIMATE VIEW 28 
 
 When urged sometimes by nervous clients to 
 defer his summing up of their case a reasonable 
 time after all the evidence was in and the argu- 
 ments heard, he would say: "I want no adjourn- 
 ment, I am ready to go right on; I have heard 
 it all as fully as the Court and jury, and that's 
 enough." A readier, more alert mind than 
 Robert G. IngersolFs never practiced in a court 
 of law. 
 
 BEFORE A JURY. 
 
 In the trial of a case before a jury Mr. Inger- 
 soll was probably at his best in the examination 
 of a witness. He was so patient, though per- 
 sistent, in getting at the facts, so considerate 
 and so fair, that he often compelled the truth 
 from hesitating and unwilling lips. He did not 
 brow beat or hector a witness. He did not 
 resort to cheap arts to entrap him. He did not 
 abuse his privilege as a lawyer and treat a wit- 
 ness on the stand as if he were a criminal in the 
 dock. No one under his searching cross-exami- 
 nation had ever to appeal to the Court for pro- 
 tection. Before a jury he was persuasive and 
 convincing, not only by the power of his elo- 
 quence, but by the force of his cogent reasoning, 
 and the skillful marshalling of the evidence to
 
 24 ROBERT G. INGERSOLL 
 
 sustain his case. He appealed to the reason and 
 conscience of his jury, not to their prejudices or 
 passions. He was truly entitled to the reputa- 
 tion he bore as one of the greatest jury lawyers 
 of his time. 
 
 BEFORE COURT AND COUNSEL. 
 
 Before Court and counsel he was always the 
 courteous gentleman, never impugning motives 
 or flinging epithet or invective. He was always 
 sure of his subject and object. He had perfect 
 poise, was always erect, self-contained and self- 
 controlled. He was never in a hurry, never flur- 
 ried, never flustered. He was always at himself, 
 never taken by surprise or off his guard. In 
 all the many legal encounters he fought I never 
 knew him to be worsted in ready and apt attack 
 and defense. The fitting retort was always at 
 the door of his lips, waiting to leap into utter- 
 ance. One instance will serve for many: 
 
 "ANANIAS AND SAPPHIRA." 
 
 In a Toledo, Ohio, terminal suit, counsel for 
 the other side interrupted Mr. Ingersoll in the 
 midst of his argument by asking: ''Colonel, did 
 you ever read the story of Ananias and Sap- 
 phira?" "Yes," came the reply, quick as a
 
 AN INTIMATE VIEW 25 
 
 flash, "and while you were speaking this after- 
 noon I looked to see you drop dead every min- 
 ute !" The hit was so palpable, so perfect, that 
 even the dignified Court of a Federal District 
 joined in the general convulsion and tilted so 
 violently in his chair that he came perilously 
 near toppling over. 
 
 In short, those in a position to know and 
 qualified to judge, — those at all acquainted with 
 Mr. Ingersoll's legal attainments and career, — 
 accorded to him the highest honors. In nearly 
 every court in which he practised he was regard- 
 ed as the leading figure. In any important case 
 in which he appeared, only the greatest cham- 
 pions ventured in the lists against him ; no lesser 
 knight of the law could hope to cope successfully 
 with him. He was in truth, with all his other 
 claims to greatness, one of the really great law- 
 yers of his day.^
 
 26 ROBERT G. INGERSOLL 
 
 III. 
 IN HIS OFFICE. 
 
 He was in his office always the genial, 
 patient, "dear old Colonel." His clerical force 
 and the students under him were trusted and 
 treated as friends. He put on no airs, assumed 
 no authority, affected no superiority. No arbi- 
 trary rules or restrictions hampered his em- 
 ployees. He never scolded, rebuked, or ordered, 
 — simply kindly requested. He was silent if 
 displeased, but never said a harsh, or mean, or 
 cutting word. The air around him was free; 
 all the discipline was self-imposed, all the duties 
 self-appointed and performed with the one ani- 
 mating purpose, — "to please the Colonel." Of- 
 fice work in his employ was a pleasure, not a 
 task, — a glad service faithfully rendered and 
 just as faithfully and fully recognized. There 
 never was a kinder, juster, or more generous 
 employer. He used to say: "Do you want to 
 know one real test of a man? How does he treat 
 his employer; how does his employer treat him?" 
 
 Interruptions when he was busy in his office, 
 did not seem to disturb or distract him. In the 
 midst of dictation of correspondence or argu-
 
 AN INTIMATE VIEW 27 
 
 ment he would welcome a caller and after a 
 chat or "interview" resume his dictation at the 
 point of leaving it. Sometimes an hour, a day, 
 or even days, would intervene; he did not lose 
 the thread but went on weaving as though the 
 loom had not for an instant stopped. He shut 
 out no visitor, although his clerks of their own 
 motion excluded many a freak or crank, notwith- 
 standing his repeated request to deny no decent 
 person audience. 
 ^ The Colonel was fond of bright newspaper 
 
 ^ men. He liked to answer questions. Inter- 
 viewers flocked to him. They were always wel- 
 comed and never disappointed if they asked 
 sensible and proper questions. "Fire away!" 
 ^ was his cheery invitation^ and to their queries 
 . a flood of wit, wisdom, humor, philosophy, logic 
 u and sense would pour out as from a strong f oun- 
 i tain. The files of many metropolitan journals 
 ^ were enriched by these spontaneous effusions. 
 
 HIS DAILY MAIL. 
 
 His daily mail was heavy. All sorts of 
 people wrote to him on all conceivable subjects. 
 This correspondence was sifted; only a tithe 
 reached his eye, — those letters absolutely requir- 
 ing his attention. Requests to lecture and ap-
 
 28 ROBERT G. INGERSOLL 
 
 peals for pecuniary help were of course multi- 
 tudinous. Many were granted, though of neces- 
 sity more were denied. Aside from his large 
 business and professional correspondence, let- 
 ters on religious questions poured in upon him. 
 Advice, argument and appeal, more or less sin- 
 cere, and sad to say, abuse, slander and defama- 
 tion of the most scurrilous kind, were not un- 
 common, while now and then anonymous threats 
 of his life were received. Whenever possible, 
 and wherever sincerity and intelligence were 
 manifest and abuse and malice absent, these 
 letters received reply. They were copied, and 
 the letter-books containing these replies would 
 make a rich mine of material for extended 
 biography. 
 
 SENSE OF LOCALITY. 
 
 He had little order in the care of papers ; hi& 
 desk was for the most part in confusion. And 
 yet he had a method of his own, with all the 
 apparent disorder. When his desk reached the 
 limit of congestion, letters and papers were care- 
 fully collected, classified and filed for him and 
 the coast thus cleared. "I put that paper just 
 where I wanted it, why did you remove it?" was 
 his usual comment on this desk-clearing pro-
 
 AN INTIMATE VIEW 29 
 
 cess. His sense of locality was so keen that 
 many times I have seen him produce a needed 
 document from a large bundle, or a letter from 
 beneath a scattered pile, without a moment's 
 hesitation. He could have found that celebrat- 
 ed needle if he had had anything to do with put- 
 ting it in the hay. His volume of Shakespeare 
 usually served as a paper-weight on his office 
 desk. It was always in sight and often taken 
 up even in busy hours. He needed for it no 
 index or concordance. Page, column and line 
 were instantly turned to. He has said to me, 
 "I know where to find that passage in Hamlet; 
 it is on page 432, on the right hand side, left 
 hand column, and at the bottom of the column." 
 Equally remarkable was his far-reaching ac- 
 curacy of vision. His eagle eye could take in 
 more at a single glance than most men's after 
 close inspection. Very little going on around 
 him escaped his notice. Once, in a trial out 
 West, he was to open the case. Counsel for the 
 other side sat to the front and left of him, sev- 
 eral feet removed, going over his notes prior 
 to oral presentation. The Colonel's quick eye 
 caught the paper, and as he assured me, with- 
 out intention or purpose — before he could help 
 it — he had taken in several points of his adver-
 
 80 ROBERT G. INGERSOLL 
 
 sary's argument. He was bothered, he said, in 
 making his opening, by the necessity of avoid- 
 ing the suspicion that he had in any way gained 
 possession of his opponent's brief. He made no 
 unfair use of the accident. In fact, he said, the 
 knowledge hampered more than helped him. 
 
 A STAINLESS RECORD. 
 
 Nothing was, nothing could be, further from 
 Mr. Ingersoll than deceit, indirection or double- 
 dealing. He was the very soul of truth, of 
 honor, and of candor. He was, indeed, a mod- 
 ern Bayard, "a knight without fear and with- 
 out reproach.'' His escutcheon was unstained, 
 and never in any court was his veracity im- 
 peached, or his professional honor successfully 
 assailed. He was high-souled, high-minded, 
 high-acting and incapable of a grovelling 
 thought, or a mean or low initiative. His pro- 
 fessional antagonists, everywhere encountered, 
 admitted that he always fought in the open, and 
 were often surprised at the large admissions 
 and generous concessions he made. His clients 
 sometimes quaked as they feared he was giving 
 away their case. He was not. The outcome 
 proved that his method was the highest art, the 
 wisest wisdom.
 
 AN INTIMATE VIEW 81 
 
 AN ORACLE. 
 
 His intuitions were like a woman's — often 
 infallible. In many an instance they were as 
 unerring as his judgment was sound, — amount- 
 ing almost to prophecy fulfilled. On that fatal 
 morning in July when the assassin's bullet laid 
 low the lamented Garfield, Mr. Ingersoll was 
 one of the first at the stricken President's side. 
 He said to me: "I know he will not live. I 
 feel it. He may rally, and linger a few days, 
 but he cannot recover." Despite all that human 
 skill could do, all means that science could 
 employ, or all that Christendom on its knees 
 could implore, the end came. 
 
 It was this gift or endowment, added to his 
 clear judgment and knowledge of human nature, 
 that made him the seer and prophet he really 
 was. This rare combination in him was recog- 
 nized by many who sought his advice and coun- 
 sel. Statesmen, politicians, men of affairs in 
 public and private life resorted to him as to an 
 oracle, and his "guesses," as he called them, 
 frequently came true. He never claimed to have 
 soothsaying or clairvoyant powers, — for he was 
 absolutely without a superstition — but he was
 
 82 ROBERT G. INGERSOLL 
 
 none the less one whose predictions were often 
 justified by the events. 
 
 PRINCELY GENEROSITY. 
 
 He extended to young lawyers and students 
 of the law a most encouraging hand. He liked 
 young men. He helped them by counsel, by 
 opening doors of opportunity, and with pecuni- 
 ary aid. Many a new-fledged attorney and 
 many an aged, stranded one "on his uppers," 
 as he would say, went from his presence with a 
 gladder heart and fuller pocket. A hundred 
 dollar bill was a frequent gift from his open 
 hand, to say not a word of the thousands scat- 
 tered in larger and smaller sums. He gave his 
 advice freely to hundreds, — especially to the 
 widow, the poor and defenceless, and tried many 
 a case to a happy conclusion, not only without 
 a fee, but himself paying all costs and disburse- 
 ments. 
 
 As a matter of fact, he was seldom richly 
 remunerated in the celebrated cases undertaken 
 by him. The Star Route trials cost him more 
 than he received in actual compensation. Ho 
 cared too little for money to insist even on his 
 rights. His ofRce books were filled with ac- 
 counts never collected, with charges never paid,
 
 AN INTIMATE VIEW 33 
 
 and yet this did not check the flow of his extrav- 
 agant generosity. He loved to give. He was 
 princely in giving. In one case where a thirty- 
 thousand dollar fee came to him he instantly 
 gave half of it to a young assistant to whom 
 two or three thousand dollars would have been 
 an ample and satisfactory return for the service 
 rendered. In another case, on receiving a fee of 
 fifteen thousand dollars, he immediately wrote a 
 check for one third of the amount to the friend 
 who had simply urged his selection as the best 
 lawyer for the case. The unexpected gift en- 
 abled this friend to lift a mortgage that had long 
 encumbered her home.
 
 34 ROBERT G. INGERSOLL 
 
 IV. 
 
 AS ORATOR AND WRITER. 
 
 Here his fame is fixed beyond all cavil, all 
 criticism, all calumny. His Christian censors 
 admitted it. His fair-minded contemporaries 
 in every intellectual field conceded it. It was 
 world-wide. Appeals came to him from nearly 
 every civilized country for a visit and a series 
 of addresses and lectures. An offer from Aus- 
 tralia guaranteed him one thousand dollars a 
 night for as many nights as he chose to speak, 
 and all expenses of himself and family paid. 
 He was unable, though not unwilling, to accept 
 the offer. As a platform orator he was great. 
 He had few if any peers in that realm. The 
 judgment of his rivals accords him this pre- 
 eminence. 
 
 Henry Ward Beecher, who certainly may be 
 quoted as competent authority, once said in in- 
 troducing him to a Brooklyn audience, "He is 
 the most brilliant speaker of the English tongue 
 of aU men on this globe." The lamented Gar- 
 field, who himself was a distinguished orator, 
 once wrote to Mr. Ingersoll, who spoke for him 
 in his campaign for the Presidency: "I have
 
 AN INTIMATE VIEW 85 
 
 J followed with intense interest your brilliant 
 campaign in my behalf. You have appeared to 
 me like a pillar of cloud by day and fire by night. 
 Your path has been one broad band of blazing 
 light. I give you my profoundest admiration 
 and gratitude." In the famous Davis Will Case 
 in Montana both Judge and prosecuting attor- 
 ney cautioned the jury to be on their guard lest 
 they be carried away by Colonel Ingersoll's elo- 
 quence, ^'which/' the attorney remarked, "is 
 famed over two continents and in the islands of 
 the seas, rivalling that of Demosthenes and 
 transcending the oratory of Greece and Rome." 
 And this warning was not an infrequent one 
 to juries before whom Mr. Ingersoll appeared 
 
 r as advocate. 
 
 LARGE LECTURE RECEIPTS. 
 
 ^ His audiences on his frequent lecture tours 
 were nearly everywhere large and enthusiastic. 
 "Standing Room Only" was the sign often dis- 
 played at the entrance of the hall or theatre 
 where he was to speak. His lecture receipts 
 v/ere extraordinary. In a trip West at one time 
 
 ^ they amounted to more than fifty thousand dol- 
 lars, net, in one month. Boston, New York, 
 Chicago and San Francisco always gave him a
 
 86 ROBERT G. INGERSOLL 
 
 vrarm and sympathetic welcome. Two or three 
 thousand dollars for a single lecture was not an 
 tinusual sum received from Boston, while one 
 great assemblage in the Auditorium at Chicago 
 yielded exactly seven thousand and one dollars, 
 — the highest sum, we may well believe, ever 
 realized for a single lecture in the history of the 
 platform. 
 
 The most thoughtful, intelligent and highly 
 cultivated people of a community thronged to 
 hear him. Even hearers who hes^itated to ac- 
 cept all he said could not help admiring the way 
 he said it, and if not convinced, never left the 
 auditorium but in a thoughtful mood. In- 
 stances were common where men and women 
 travelled long distances to listen to his eloquent 
 words, and one ardent admirer — a young law- 
 yer from Boston — followed him thousands of 
 miles that he might not lose an opportunity of 
 hearing him. 
 
 GREAT SPEECHES. 
 
 Most Americans are familiar with his speech 
 nominating Mr. Blaine for the Presidency, in 
 which he invested that brilliant statesman with 
 the title "Plumed Knight," a sobriquet that re- 
 mained with him to the end of his career. His
 
 AN INTIMATE VIEW 37 
 
 great speech at the ^'Grant Banquet," his thrill- 
 ing epic "A Vision of War," or 'The Past Rises 
 Before me Like a Dream," delivered at a 
 soldiers' reunion in Indianapolis; his wonder- 
 ful "Decoration Day Oration," in New York, 
 his tribute to his brother Ebon, his matchless 
 memorial to his friend and associate, Roscoe 
 Conkling, and the laureate crown he laid on the 
 tomb of his friend and leader, the martyred 
 Lincoln, together with many other eulogies of 
 the noble dead that sprang from his generous 
 and passionately patriotic heart, are to-day the 
 treasured possessions of his countrymen. His 
 lips dropped polished pearls that will adorn and 
 enrich the language of his day and of all time. 
 
 A MEMORABLE SCENE. 
 
 The tribute paid by Mr. Ingersoll to his be- 
 loved brother Ebon was everywhere acknow- 
 ledged to be the most profoundly tender and 
 beautiful in English literature. It has become 
 classic. The scene of its utterance, in its whole 
 setting, was solemnly dramatic. Around the 
 bier, gathered as mourners, were many of the 
 first men of the Nation. They had come, not 
 only in sympathy with the grief -stricken brother,
 
 38 ROBERT G. INGERSOLL 
 
 but to mingle their tears with his in homage of 
 their late friend and associate. The Hon. Ebon 
 C. Ingersoll was well known in social and offi- 
 cial circles in Washington. He was a Member 
 of Congress, a staunch Republican and true 
 patriot, and well and faithfully served his Illin- 
 ois constituency. He was a wise legislator, a 
 man of unbending integrity, a true and loyal 
 friend. As a lawyer he was able and well equip- 
 ped, and while a forceful speaker, was not as 
 "dearly parted" as his brilliant brother, al- 
 though he was a wise and safe counsellor. In 
 religious belief he was a firm Agnostic, an 
 ardent supporter of Robert in all campaigns 
 against superstition and fanaticism, and he 
 gloried in his fame as the greatest orator of the 
 day. As Mr. Ingersoll has said: "It was from 
 his lips I heard the first words of encourage- 
 ment and praise." Ebon C. was a worthy com- 
 panion of Robert G., and an honor to the family 
 whose name he bore. 
 
 The following vivid description of the scene 
 attending the delivery of the Tribute, and of the 
 funeral obsequies, is taken from the National 
 Republican of Washington, published the day 
 after the funeral : 
 
 "The funeral of the Hon. E. C. Ingersoll
 
 AN INTIMATE VIEW 39 
 
 took place yesterday afternoon at four o'clock, 
 from his late residence, 1403 K Street. The 
 spacious parlors were filled to overflowing, and 
 hundreds were unable to obtain admittance. 
 Among those who were present to pay their 
 homage to the distinguished and beloved dead 
 were Secretary of the Treasury Sherman, As- 
 sistant-Secretary of the Treasury Hawley, Sen- 
 ators Blaine, Voorhees, Paddock, David Davis, 
 John A. Logan, the Hon. William M. Morrison, 
 Hon. William M. Springer, Hon. Thomas A. 
 Boyd, Governor Pound, Hon. J. R. Thomas, Hon. 
 Thomas J. Henderson, Hon. Jeremiah Wilson, 
 Adlai E. Stevenson, Col, Ward H. Lamon, Col. 
 James Fishback, General Farnsworth, General 
 Robert C. Schenck, General Jeffries, General 
 Williams and the Hon. H. C. Burchard, Judge 
 Shellbarger, General Birney, Governor Lowe, 
 Acting Commissioner of Internal Revenue H. C. 
 Rogers, General Williamson of the Land Office 
 and a great many other prominent members of 
 the bar and also a large number of Illinoisans 
 were present. It was the largest gathering of 
 distinguished persons assembled at a funeral 
 since that of Chief -Justice Chase. 
 
 "The only ceremony at the house, other than 
 the viewing of the remains, was a most affect-
 
 40 ROBERT G. INGERSOLL 
 
 ing, pathetic and touching address by Col. 
 Robert G. Ingersoll, brother of the deceased. 
 When he began to read his eloquent characteriza- 
 tion of the dead man his eyes at once filled with 
 tears. He tried to hide them, but he could not 
 do it, and finally he bowed his head upon the 
 dead man*s coffin in uncontrollable grief. It 
 was only after some delay, and the greatest ef- 
 forts at self-mastery, that Colonel Ingersoll was 
 able to finish reading his address. When he had 
 ceased speaking, the members of the bereaved 
 family approached the casket and looked upon 
 the form which it contained, for the last time. 
 The scene was heartrending. The devotion of 
 all connected with the household excited the sym- 
 pathy of all, and there was not a dry eye to be 
 seen. The pall-bearers — Senator William B. 
 Allison, Senator James G. Blaine, Senator David 
 Davis, Senator Daniel Voohees, Representative 
 James A. Garfield, Senator A. S. Paddock, Rep- 
 resentative Thomas Q. Boyd, of Illinois, the Hon. 
 Ward H. Lamon, ex-Congressman Jere Wilson, 
 and Representative Adlai E. Stevenson of Illin- 
 ois — then bore the remains to the hearse, and the 
 lengthy cortege proceeded to the Oak Hill Ceme- 
 tery, where the remains were interred, in the
 
 AN INTIMATE VIEW 41 
 
 presence of the family and friends without fur- 
 ther ceremony." 
 
 THE TRIBUTE. 
 
 **Dear Friends : I am going to do that which 
 the dead oft promised he would do for me. 
 
 "The loved and loving brother, husband, 
 father, friend, died where manhood's morning 
 almost touches noon, and while the shadows still 
 were falling toward the west. 
 
 "He had not passed on life's highway the 
 stone that marks the highest point; but being 
 weary for a moment, he lay down by the wayside, 
 and using his burden for a pillow, fell into that 
 dreamless sleep that kisses down his eyelids 
 still. While yet in love with life and raptured 
 with the world, he passed to silence and pathetic 
 dust. 
 
 "Yet, after all, it may be best, just in the 
 happiest, sunniest hour of all the voyage, while 
 eager winds are kissing every sail, to dash 
 against the unseen rock, and in an instant hear 
 the billows roar above a sunken ship. For 
 whether in mid sea or 'mong the breakers of the 
 farther shore, a wreck at last must mark the 
 end of each and all. And every life, no matter 
 if its every hour is rich with love and every
 
 J 
 
 42 ROBERT G. INGERSOLL 
 
 moment jewelled with a joy, will, at its close, 
 become a tragedy as sad and deep and dark as 
 can be woven of the warp and woof of mystery 
 and death. 
 
 "This brave and tender man in every storm 
 of life was oak and rock; but in the sunshine 
 he was vine and flower. He was the friend of 
 all heroic souls. He climbed the heights, and 
 left all superstitions far below, while on his fore- 
 head fell the golden dawning of the grander day. 
 
 "He loved the beautiful, and was with color, 
 form, and music touched to tears. He sided 
 with the weak, the poor and wronged, and lov- 
 ingly gave alms. With loyal heart and with 
 the purest hands he faithfully discharged all 
 public trusts. 
 
 "He was a worshipper of liberty, a friend of 
 the oppressed. A thousand times I have heard 
 him quote these words: ^For Justice all place 
 a temple, and all season, summer.' He believed 
 that happiness is the only good, reason the only 
 torch, justice the only worship, humanity the 
 only religion, and love the only priest. He 
 added to the sum of human joy; and were every 
 one to whom he did some loving service to bring 
 a blossom to his grave, he would sleep to-night 
 beneath a wilderness of flowers.
 
 AN INTIMATE VIEW 43 
 
 "Life is a narrow vale between the cold and 
 barren peaks of two eternities. We strive in 
 vain to look beyond the heights. We cry aloud, 
 and the only answer is the echo of our wailing 
 ^ / cry. From the voiceless lips of the unreplying 
 dead there comes no word; but in the night of 
 death Hope sees a star and listening Love can 
 "^ hear the rustle of a wing. 
 
 "He who sleeps here, when dying, mistaking 
 
 the approach of death for the return of health, 
 
 f ..f^ whispered with his latest breath, *I am better 
 
 now.' Let us believe, in spite of doubts and 
 
 dogmas, of fears and tears, that these dear 
 
 L , words are true of all the countless dead. 
 
 |yi- ^ .„, j^^ V. "The record of a generous life runs like a 
 
 vine around the memory of our dead, and every 
 
 sweet, unselfish act is now a perfumed flower. 
 
 "And now, to you, who have been chosen 
 from among the many men he loved, to do the 
 last sad office for the dead, we give his sacred 
 dust. 
 
 "Speech cannot contain our love. There 
 was, there is, no gentler, stronger, manlier 
 man."
 
 44 ROBERT G. INGERSOLL 
 
 '^''^^Jl^*' A VISION OF WAR. 
 
 What patriot can read without emotion the 
 following thrilling epic of the civil war, deliv- 
 ered at a soldiers' reunion in Indianapolis: 
 
 **The past rises before me like a dream. 
 Again we are in the great struggle for national 
 life. We hear the sounds of preparation — the 
 music of boisterous drums — the silver voices 
 of heroic bugles. We see thousands of assemb- 
 lages, and hear the appeals of orators. We see 
 the pale cheeks of women, and the flushed faces 
 of men ; and in those assemblages we see all the 
 dead whose dust we have covered with flowers. 
 We lose sight of them no more. We are with 
 them when they enlist in the great army of free- 
 dom. We see them part with those they love. 
 Some are walking for the last time in quiet, 
 woody places, with the maidens they adore. 
 We hear the whisperings and the sweet vows of 
 eternal love as they lingeringly part forever. 
 Others are bending over cradles, kissing babes 
 that are asleep. Some are receiving the bless- 
 ings of old men. Some are parting with 
 mothers who hold and press them to their 
 hearts again and again, and say nothing. Kiss- 
 es and tears, tears and kisses — divine mingling
 
 AN INTIMATE VIEW 45 
 
 of agony and love ! And some are talking with 
 wives, and endeavoring with brave words, 
 spoken in the old tones, to drive from their 
 hearts the awful fear. We see them part. We 
 see the wife standing in the door with the babe 
 in her arms — standing in the sunlight, sobbing. 
 At the turn of the road a hand waves — she an- 
 swers by holding high in her loving arms the 
 child. He is gone, and forever. 
 
 "We see them all as they march proudly 
 away under the flaunting flags, keeping time to 
 the grand, wild music of war — marching down 
 the streets of the gr-^at cities — through the 
 towns and across prairies — down to the fields of 
 glory, to do and to die for the eternal right. 
 
 "We go with them, one and all. We are by 
 their side on all the gory fields — in all the hos- 
 pitals of pain — on all the weary marches. We 
 stand guard with them in the wild storm and 
 under the quiet stars. We are with them in 
 ravines running with blood — in the furrows of 
 old fields. We are with them between contend- 
 ing hosts, unable to move, wild with thirst, the 
 life ebbing slowly away among the withered 
 leaves. We see them pierced by balls and torn 
 with shells, in the trenches, by forts, and in the
 
 46 ROBERT G. INGERSOLL 
 
 whirlwind of the charge, where men become 
 iron, with nerves of steel. 
 
 "We are with them in the prisons of hatred 
 and famine; but human speech can never tell 
 what they endured. 
 
 "We are at home when the news comes that 
 they are dead. We see the maiden in the shadow 
 of her first sorrow. We see the silvered head of 
 the old man bowed with the last grief. 
 
 "The past rises before us, and we see four 
 millions of human beings governed by the lash — 
 we see them bound hand and foot — we hear the 
 strokes of cruel whips — we see the hounds track- 
 ing women through tangled swamps. We see 
 babes sold from the breasts of mothers. Cruelty 
 unspeakable ! Outrage infinite ! 
 
 "Four million bodies in chains — four million 
 souls in fetters. All the sacred relations of 
 wife, mother, father and child trampled beneath 
 the brutal feet of might. And all this was done 
 under our own beautiful banner of the free. 
 
 "The past rises before us. We hear the roar 
 and shriek of the bursting shell. The broken 
 fetters fall. These heroes died. We look. In- 
 stead of slaves we see men and women and child- 
 ren. The wand of progress touches the auction- 
 block, the slave-pen, the whipping-post, and we
 
 6 
 
 AN INTIMATE VIEW 47 
 
 see homes and firesides and school-houses and 
 books, and where all was want and crime and 
 cruelty and fear, we see the faces of the free. 
 
 "These heroes are dead. They died for lib- 
 erty — they died for us. They are at rest. They 
 , sleep in the land they made free, under the flag 
 . they rendered stainless, under the solemn pines^ 
 ^^'^ ,, the sad hemlocks, the tearful willows and the 
 , embracing vines. They sleep beneath the shad- 
 ows of the clouds, careless alike of sunshine or 
 of storm, each in the windowless palace of Rest. 
 Earth may run red with other wars — they are 
 at peace. In the midst of battle, in the roar of 
 conflict, they found the serenity of death. I 
 have one sentiment for soldiers living and dead : 
 Cheers for the living; tears for the dead.
 
 48 ROBERT G. INGERSOLL 
 
 V. 
 
 HIS METHOD IN COMPOSITION. 
 
 Mr. Ingersoll's method in the composition of 
 his written and spoken words was singularly 
 spontaneous and unmechanical. He was not a 
 phrase-tinker or word-carpenter. His pictures 
 flashed from his brain as finished products. 
 They were fixed on the canvas without correct- 
 ing touches of form or color, completed as cre- 
 ated. What his artist-soul saw and felt he 
 instantly communicated as visible and audible 
 images to others^ eyes and ears. No matter 
 what the theme, his tongue responded to his 
 
 ^ thought in instant and perfect epigram, illus- 
 
 (_ tration, simile, or metaphor. 
 
 Excepting social letters, and memoranda 
 found on scattered scraps of paper, he wrote 
 little with his own hand. Nearly everything he 
 gave for publication was dictated. His legal 
 briefs and papers, his magazine and review 
 articles, editorials, press interviews, mono- 
 graphs, speeches, lectures, — everything he wish- 
 ed to say — were delivered in faultless form 
 through the portals of his facile lips. Where- 
 ever he happened to be, — in his office, at his
 
 AN INTIMATE VIEW 49 
 
 home, on the boat, in the train, in the cab rat- 
 tling through noisy streets, sitting, standing, re- 
 clining — he spoke the splendid words that the 
 stenographer's art caught and reproduced for 
 him. His famous Replies to Judge Black in The 
 North American Review were dictated at the 
 billiard table in his home, with cue in hand. A 
 sentence and a paragraph, then a run with the 
 balls, — another paragraph, another run, — and 
 so on to the end. His Replies to Mr. Gladstone, 
 Dr. Field, Cardinal Manning, and other cham- 
 pions ' in the religious arena, were composed 
 under like distractions, as most would deem 
 them. To Mr. Ingersoll, however, who had as 
 few men ever had it, the faculty of thinking 
 on his feet, these distractions seemed only to 
 stimulate and concentrate his thought. 
 
 AS A CONVERSATIONALIST. 
 
 In conversation, whether in private or social 
 circles, he was beyond expression delightful, 
 versatile, great. The favored guests at his fire- 
 side often found themselves dumb in his pres- 
 ence — struck into listening silence — so that only 
 the one magnetic voice was heard. He was at his 
 best in his own home circle. Here he showed 
 his shining self as nowhere else. Here his
 
 50 ROBERT G. INGERSOLL 
 
 abandon was complete. Here he threw off all 
 trammels of convention, all reserve, all con- 
 sciousness of power, and spoke and acted as he 
 felt, — with the exuberance of youth, forget- 
 ful of his mature years and ripe experience. 
 Around his hospitable board his chosen friends 
 feasted on food for mind and body, heart and 
 soul. Those table-talks day after day, joined in 
 by his family and guests whom he stimulated 
 by question and rally and the force of his genial, 
 gentle leadership, — who could forget them? 
 
 And those informal Sunday evening recep- 
 tions held week after week in his Washington 
 home ! Here distinguished men and women, — 
 scientists, scholars, philosophers, thinkers, judg- 
 es, lawyers, merchants, bankers, capitalists, 
 clerks, artists and artisans, religious and non- 
 religious professors, and even theologians — 
 saints and sinners — gathered in his parlors 
 and drawing-room and joined in the discussions 
 which he led on all topics of human interest. It 
 is fair to say that no social or intellectual func- 
 tions of the day in Washington were better at- 
 tended, more attractive and distinguished, or so 
 truly cosmopolitan, as those enjoyed in the home 
 of Colonel Robert G. Ingersoll. On one occa- 
 sion no less than five Presidential aspirants
 
 AN INTIMATE VIEW 51 
 
 mingled in the throng. It was a frequent wish 
 of his auditors on these occasions that he had 
 had an audience of thousands to hear him. He 
 spoke as no man living spoke. 
 
 GREAT IN STORY-TELUNG. 
 
 There never was a better teller of a story 
 than Mr. Ingersoll. Like Lincoln, he always had 
 his quiver full, and never one missed its mark. 
 He was in constant demand as an after-dinner 
 speaker, and the chief attraction at many a 
 social feast and club banquet. He knew just 
 '^ji^ where and when to stop in the narration of any 
 vl<?''""' fact or fancy. His faultless allegories, similes, 
 "^ metaphors and epigrams were faultlessly used. 
 ^ As we have seen, he was also a king in repartee. 
 ^ In swift reply he always returned much better 
 than was sent. Those rash opponents who ven- 
 tured to attack him when they thought him off 
 his guard repented of their temerity, for they 
 found him fully armed to meet them. The re- 
 tort courteous or keen, gentle or severe, grave or 
 gay — always fitting — ^was ready at command 
 for every time and place, every season and oc- 
 casion. Two incidents only out of many need 
 be here recalled. 
 
 On a train going through California a pom- 
 
 -yvv
 
 62 ROBERT G. INGEPwSOLL 
 
 pous clergyman proclaimed aloud his faith to all 
 the travellers in the car. He passed along the 
 aisle, and when he reached the seat in which the 
 Colonel sat, cried out with strident voice, "The 
 fool hath said in his heart,* there is no God; 
 thank God, I'm not a fool!" Before he could 
 strut out, the Colonel sent the swift reply, 'That 
 depends on what the people think who know 
 you!" At another time a pious maiden, think- 
 ing to entrap him, brought a nosegay and hand- 
 ing it to him suddenly said: "Colonel, who made 
 these beautiful flowers?" "The same, my dear 
 young lady, that made the poison of the ivy and 
 the asp!" 
 
 HIS WEALTH OF INFORMATION. 
 
 When, or where, or how this full man ac- 
 quired the treasures of knowledge at his com- 
 mand, has been the puzzle of his friends. As I 
 knew him and observed him he did not seem to 
 be a great reader, or student of books, and yet 
 he was acquainted with most worth-while books. 
 He was not a classical scholar, so-called, yet he 
 knew the classics. He was not a historian, yet 
 he knew history. He was not a scientist or 
 philosopher, according to the schools, and held no 
 college diploma, yet he knew much of nearly all
 
 AN INTIMATE VIEW 53 
 
 the sciences and philosophies. Colleges and uni- 
 versities under the patronage and control of re- 
 ligious denominations, he used to say were 
 generally institutions where "pebbles were pol- 
 ished and diamonds dimmed." He often quoted 
 Bruno, who called Oxford "the widow of 
 learning." 
 
 Nor was he a theologian, yet he knew theo- 
 logies, and could and did successfully contend 
 with the greatest in that field. He claimed that 
 they never answered his arguments. He had 
 such a power of ready assimilation, that every- 
 thing he saw or read or heard was instantly 
 appropriated and became his own. He seemed 
 to forget nothing that he ever knew. He was 
 always acquiring from the countless sources of 
 knowledge. He read with the greatest eagerness 
 and rapidity. I have known him to glance over 
 the pages of even metaphysical treatises, and 
 without apparent hesitation possess himself of 
 their contents. 
 
 HIS VERSATILITY OF TALENT. 
 
 Keeping abreast of the times as he did, he 
 knew the latest theories, discoveries, and inven- 
 tions, — all that was going on in the world of 
 science and art, of men and measures. Nothing
 
 64 ROBERT G. INGERSOLL 
 
 seemed to escape his notice, or to be beyond his 
 grasp. His range of information was truly 
 encyclopedic. It was said of him, as of another 
 eminent publicist — I think it was of Col. Theo- 
 dore Roosevelt: — **He had the greatest and 
 most accurate knowledge on the largest number 
 of subjects, of any man I ever knew." ^ He had a 
 mathematical knowledge that made him an adept 
 in figures and much more than an amateur in 
 astronomy. He knew the names of all the con- 
 stellations with their principal stars, and loved 
 by night to sweep the heavens with his powerful 
 telescope, and observe the phases of the moon 
 and movements of the planets and their satel- 
 lites. This love of astronomy and aptness with 
 figures, he said, "ran in the family," was an in- 
 herited gift from his mother. He was also a 
 well-known student of sociology and a past-mas- 
 ter in domestic and political economy, a wise 
 and far-seeing publicist and an enlightened 
 statesman — an ardent Republican, but not an 
 office-seeker, or politician, out for the spoils. 
 
 If his role as a lawyer required a knowledge 
 of diseases and their symptoms and treatment, 
 by the study of medical treatises bearing on his 
 case he became, for the nonce, a pathologist; of 
 surgery a surgeon ; of finance a financier, — and
 
 AN INTIMATE VIEW 65 
 
 SO with many of the applied and useful arts. 
 The many railway, telegraph and patent suits 
 he tried made of him a railroad organizer, 
 director, and president, an electrician and indus- 
 trial expert. He once tried a case in which the 
 plaintiff had been injured in a railroad accident, 
 and so astonished the Court and experts that a 
 surgeon in attendance, surprised at his tech- 
 nical knowledge of anatomy, asked him when 
 and where he had experimented, and from what 
 institution he had graduated. His wonderful 
 capacity for acquiring knowledge needed on any ^ 
 subject accounts for this versatility. 
 
 A DEVOURER OF BOOKS. 
 
 While, as I have said, he did not in his later 
 years seem to be a great reader of books, yet in 
 early life he had laid the foundations well. As 
 a boy and in his young manhood he was an in- 
 quirer and observer. Even as a child he was a 
 lover of books, and later on it became with him a 
 fascination and passion. He read everything 
 of value he could lay his hands on, — knew every 
 book in his father's library. He read thought- 
 fully, voraciously, constantly. Night after 
 night, and all the night through, he has told me, 
 he has read until mentally and physically ex-
 
 56 ROBERT G. INGERSOLL 
 
 hausted. Nor did he wish merely to go through 
 a book. He wanted to understand it. He read 
 with a purpose. He was eager to search, to find, 
 to know. His thirst for knowledge was insati- 
 ate. He has said: "Banish me from Eden when 
 you will, but first let me eat of the fruit of the 
 tree of knowledge.",. He was hungry for facts, 
 for truths, for reasons. He absorbed and as- 
 similated, combined, separated and classified, 
 criticised and compared until he could reach a 
 decision. He never left a subject until he 
 thought he understood it. 
 
 A WONDERFUL MEMORY. 
 
 His memory, as we have noted it in his 
 career as a lawyer, was truly a marvelous gift. 
 Whatever once left its impress on the tablets 
 of his sensitive brain seemed fixed there for all 
 the future, to be retained until recalled. Shake- 
 speare and Burns were so familiar to him that he 
 had them by heart, as we say, and he could and 
 did quote whole scenes and acts almost without 
 an error, as one would read it from the printed 
 page. I have heard him say if most of the plays 
 of the one and poems of the other should be lost 
 of record, he could substantially restore them. 
 And it was the same with countless selections he
 
 AN INTIMATE VIEW 57 
 
 had acquired from the world's greatest thinkers 
 and writers. 
 
 He almost deified Shakespeare, and among 
 other tributes to that wonderful genius, said: 
 "Shakespeare was an intellectual ocean, whose 
 waves touched all the shores of thought ; within 
 which were all the tides and waves of destiny 
 and will; over which swept all the storms of 
 fate, ambition and revenge ; upon which fell the 
 gloom and darkness of despair and death and all 
 the sunlight of content and love, and within 
 which was the inverted sky lit with the eternal 
 stars — an intellectual ocean — toward which all 
 rivers ran, and from which now the isles and 
 continents of thought receive their dew and 
 rain." 
 
 It was a favorite saying of his, "Shakespeare 
 is my Bible and Burns my Hymn-book." 
 
 Upon his library table he kept two magnifi- 
 cent folio volumes — one of Shakespeare, the 
 other of Burns; — ^but unlike the traditional 
 "parlor ornament" — the fetich in so many 
 Christian homes, — they were there not for dis- 
 play, but for use, and were constantly resorted 
 to for reading and reference.
 
 68 KOBERT G. INGERSOLL 
 
 A FERTILE IMAGINATION. 
 
 Added to his other gifts and qualifications, 
 natural and acquired, and crowning them all, 
 was his splendid imagination. This faculty in 
 him was richly developed. He seemed by its 
 power to mount to the loftiest heights and to see 
 into the soul and substance of things — to pene- 
 trate far beyond and below all surfaces. He has 
 said that he shrank from passing a cemetery, — 
 not through fear, for there never was a more 
 fearless soul, — but because beneath the mounds 
 and monuments he could see the faces of the dead 
 and clothe the mouldering forms with throbbing 
 life. This power filled in for him all vacant 
 spaces, supplied all missing links. Given a 
 bone, a scale, a root, a leaf, and the man of sci- 
 ence will construct for you the bird, the fish, 
 the flower and tree that were. So the con- 
 structive Colonel needed but the hints and frag- 
 ments of a fact to enable him to group together 
 all related facts and complete the structure as 
 it was and should be. But he went a great 
 way farther. With "imagination's wondrous 
 wand," as he styled it, and with his poetic soul, 
 he made his tree a mighty forest, his flower a 
 garden of Eden without its serpent, his fish a
 
 AN INTIMATE VIEW 59 
 
 sporting multitude peopling happy seas, and his 
 woods and groves a fairy land vocal with the 
 notes of warbling birds and teeming with all 
 forms of joyous life. He was a poet — a real 
 creator — a prophet of the truth and love and 
 joy to be. , 
 
 HIS EARLY RELIGIOUS TRAINING. 
 
 '' They greatly err who think and say that Mr. 
 Ingersoll as a child was not, could not have been, 
 properly trained in religious truths and duties. 
 He was the son of loving and praying parents. 
 His father was a Presbyterian and Congrega- 
 tional minister, beloved and honored by all who 
 knew him. His sweet and noble mother died 
 when Robert was a babe of only two years. 
 Her loving task fell to the father. By precept 
 and example he strove with all his might, fer- 
 vently invoking divine assistance, tenderly and 
 truly to train his child in the way he should go, 
 relying on the promise that when old he would 
 not depart from it. Robert was brought up on 
 the Bible and the Westminster Shorter Cate- 
 echism, and taught a strict observance of the 
 Sabbath day. He was admonished to search the 
 Scriptures. He did search them, but found 
 them wanting, and frankly said so. They did
 
 60 ROBERT G. INGERSOLL 
 
 not solve his childish doubts, answer his many 
 questions, or satisfy the awakening yearnings 
 of his large and affectionate heart. "Something 
 wrong, somewhere,'* was his frequent comment, 
 even as a boy, as he read the Bible. His father 
 was troubled in spirit. He could not compre- 
 hend such skepticism in one so young, — the 
 child of his own heart and hopes, of his own faith 
 and prayers. How could he, in his wildest 
 dreams, ever have foreseen that this bright and 
 beautiful boy would one day ripen into the most 
 famous Agnostic of the century? Yet, with all 
 his fears and misgivings, this good father was 
 wise and just and broad enough to say: "My 
 boy, be true to yourself; tell your honest 
 thought; never be a hypocrite !" He never was. 
 
 HIS father's tutor. 
 
 As he advanced in years and "grew in wis- 
 dom and stature" he became his father's tutor 
 in religious research. He was to him a veri- 
 table commentary, concordance and index of 
 Bible texts and passages. He discussed intelli- 
 gently with him the creeds, histories and the- 
 ologies, the doctrines and dogmas of Jewish, 
 Heathen and Christian religions. His father 
 was proud of him although he could not answer
 
 AN INTIMATE VIEW 61 
 
 him, and wept over his heterodoxy, while he 
 «ould not help admiring his wonderful defense 
 of it. While yet a boy Robert knew the Bible 
 from cover to cover, having read it through 
 more than once, and by his gift of memory re- 
 tained it. He had also gone through the Com- 
 mentaries of Scott, Henry and Clarke. He 
 knew every book in his father's library and 
 could quote at will from most of them. 
 "Bunyan's Pilgrim's Progress" interested and 
 its dramatic style pleased him, while "Fox's 
 Book of Martyrs" fascinated but terrified him ; 
 it burned into his soul and filled his days with 
 fear and nights with horrid dreams. "Milton's 
 Paradise Lost" with its "heavenly militia," as 
 he termed it, fed but failed to entrap his 
 imagination, and he said that Mr. Jenkyn needed 
 to atone for his book "On The Atonement." 
 "Alleine's Alarm" did not frighten him; 
 "Baxter's Call" met no response from his intel- 
 lect or heart, and his "Saints' Rest" was not the 
 kind of rest he thought he could enjoy, "where 
 congregations ne'er break up and Sabbaths 
 have no end," while Jonathan Edwards' fright- 
 ful sermon, "Sinners in the Hands of an Angry 
 God," excited only his indignation, pity and 
 disgust. —
 
 62 ROBERT G. INGERSOLL 
 
 The simple truth is that Mr. Ingersoll was 
 an unbeliever from his childhood. He has said 
 to me, as to others, that he never remembered 
 the time when his mind did not reject and his 
 heart resent what he believed to be the cruelties 
 and falsehoods of many of the Bible doctrines 
 and narratives, and when he did not hate with 
 all his soul the injustice and savagery of the 
 man-made God of the Scriptures. 
 
 A WORTHY FATHER OF A NOBLE SON. 
 
 He often joined in the conversations and con- 
 troversies of the clergymen who made his fa- 
 therms home a favorite place of assembly. As 
 a youth he was remarkable for his debating 
 powers and his ability to define and defend his 
 views on religion and other subjects under dis- 
 cussion. His father not only respected his con- 
 victions, but sought his opinions on disputed 
 points of doctrine and belief, and while he might 
 not be able to accept his conclusions, always 
 accorded his son the right of private judgment 
 and freedom of expression. He was the worthy 
 father of a noble son. Long before his death, 
 this loving and tender man who, as Mr. Inger- 
 soll has told me, often walked the floor at nights 
 weeping and agonizing over the condition of
 
 AN INTIMATE VIEW 63 
 
 lost worlds of souls; at last, learning "out 
 of the mouth of his own babe and suckling," 
 gave up his belief in eternal torment and died 
 abhorring it. 
 
 IN MUSIC AND THE DRAMA. 
 
 As may well be inferred from what has been 
 said, Mr. Ingersoll was a many-sided man. 
 Though not a musician he was a most discrim- 
 inating judge and passionate lover of music. 
 His ear and heart were ^'finely tuned to all the 
 harmonies." He attended all the great operas, 
 heard all the famous songsters, and knew fami- 
 liarly many of the masters of the baton. His 
 own home was a temple of music and its music- 
 room the shrine of his dwelling. Here was his 
 family altar. His wife and daughters were 
 the divinities. His two children had been thor- 
 oughly educated in music and song, so that 
 under the tenderly sweet voice of the one and 
 the exquisitely deft touch of the other, the 
 happy father sat as one entranced, his sorrows 
 soothed, his cares dismissed, his strength renew- 
 ed and his soul satisfied. Surely never was 
 sweeter music heard in any home than in the 
 home of Robert G. Ingersoll.
 
 64 ROBERT G. INGERSOLL 
 
 Having such "music in his soul" he natur- 
 ally gathered about him congenial spirits. He 
 was widely recognized as the friend and patron 
 of singers and musicians, of artists and actors, 
 poets and painters, and workers in every field 
 of fine expression. Many of the brightest lights 
 in these professions were his intimates, who 
 sought his counsel and accepted his criticisms 
 and suggestions on their work. He loved the 
 drama, was the intimate of Booth and Barrett 
 and their legal counsellor, the admired and ad- 
 miring friend of Joseph Jefferson, and of nearly 
 all the popular actors of the day. He was a 
 contributor to the leading dramatic, musical and 
 art journals, a frequent visitor at artists' 
 studios, in constant demand and the chief 
 attraction as a speaker in entertainments for 
 the benefit of the Actors* Fund, and by voice 
 and pen showed his sympathy with every move- 
 ment for the elevation and improvement of the 
 actors' profession. 
 
 In his musical taste he was passionately fond 
 of Wagner, and revelled in his "music of two 
 worlds," as he styled it. He called him "the 
 Shakespeare of music." Beethoven's "Sweet 
 and dim symphonies" appealed deliciously to his 
 sympathetic ear, and indeed the great creations
 
 AN INTIMATE VIEW 65 
 
 of most of the masters of song stirred him to the 
 depths. They thrilled, ravished, transported 
 him. The perfect affected him to tears. He 
 loved in certain moods the riot of melody, the 
 wild and chaotic chorus, the "wolf-tone" effects 
 of full orchestration, as well as in placid moods 
 he enjoyed the quieter melody of the solo and 
 duet. Anton Seidl as an artist in harmony cap- 
 tivated him completely and won his personal 
 regard. His memorial tribute to that great 
 wielder of the baton is one of the finest in 
 musical literature. 
 
 The violin was his special favorite among 
 instruments. All night long in his home he has 
 sat entranced under the spell of Remenyi's bow. 
 He loved the sudden contrasts, the ascending 
 notes of trium.ph to the heights of the cres- 
 cendo, and then the fall to the diminuendo 
 — notes that softly floated down like snow- 
 flakes and like them melted in the noiseless air. 
 The organ, unless a master touched the keys, 
 seldom satisfied him, — it too often suggested 
 ecclesiastic service and ceremony. For a like 
 reason the tolling bell and metallic chime failed 
 to please him. Beauty, sweetness, joy, and the 
 married harmony of form and motion, sound 
 and color, appealed to his aesthetic and artistic
 
 66 ROBERT G. INGERSOLL 
 
 self in countless ways, and found wide open por- 
 tals at every avenue of his art-attuned senses. 
 He was not only a lover of art, but himself an 
 artist, weaving, painting, sculpturing with 
 words, and acting his splendid part in the 
 drama of life, — a drama that ended, he said, in 
 a tragedy for all. 
 
 CONCERNING HIS LECTURING. 
 
 Mr. Ingersoll, as we have seen, was first of 
 all, a lawyer. This profession was his early 
 choice, and its pursuit through life his chief 
 reliance. In it he rose to eminence and won 
 enviable recognition. But he was more than 
 a lawyer. He was so many-sided, so "dearly 
 parted, so much in having, or without or in," 
 that one pursuit alone could not fill his measure 
 or provide a scope wide and broad and full 
 enough for all his virile powers. His brain was 
 large, but his heart was larger, so that while 
 he had views and opinions on most subjects, he 
 had something higher, deeper, stronger, — he 
 had deep-seated convictions on the side of Truth, 
 Justice, Freedom, Honor, Courage, Candor of 
 the soul, and all the human virtues. 
 
 He was an ardent patriot. He loved his 
 country and its free institutions with a passion-
 
 AN INTIMATE VIEW 67 
 
 ate fervor. He hated slavery and oppression 
 in every form ; so we early find him in the Army 
 of Freedom and the Union where he earned his 
 title of Colonel by raising a regiment of 
 Illinois cavalry. But the horrors of war were 
 too appalling to his gentle and tender spirit. 
 He could not bear the sight of suffering even 
 of dumb animals, and he soon resigned the 
 sword of war to fight with tongue and pen the 
 battles of the weak, the ignorant and enslaved. 
 And so eloquent and convincing was this tongue, 
 that when a prisoner in General Forrest^s camp, 
 his influence was so marked upon the Confede- 
 rate troops that the General soon paroled him, 
 saying that if he did not, Ingersoll would con- 
 vert all his men into Yankees ! He was every- 
 where and always a mighty champion of Lib- 
 erty, Justice and Truth, of the rights and privi- 
 leges of mankind. .-< 
 
 "WOE IS ME IF I PREACH NOT THE GOSPEL !" 
 
 Endowed as he was, and knew himself to be, 
 he deemed it a crime against his nature to be 
 silent when he felt he ought to speak. He used 
 to say, with an arch smile at his use of a Scrip- 
 ture quotation: "Woe is me if I preach not the 
 Gospel!" ("The average man," he said, "is
 
 68 ROBERT G. INGERSOLL 
 
 afraid to utter his real thought.'* "He is the 
 prey of Tyranny and Superstition." "The 
 Throne and Altar were twins — two vultures 
 from the same eggJ' {"The race is under the 
 dominion of Fear, — fear of men, of ghosts, of 
 hells. I do not fear. I will speak what I think." 
 "Somebody ought to tell the truth about the 
 Bible. The preachers dare not, because they 
 would be driven from their pulpits. Professors 
 in colleges dare not, because they would lose 
 their salaries. Politicians dare not. They 
 would be defeated. Editors dare not. They 
 would lose subscribers. Merchants dare not, 
 because they might lose customers. Men of 
 fashion dare not, fearing that they would lose 
 caste. Even clerks dare not, because they 
 might be discharged. And so, I thought I 
 would do it myself."/ 
 
 Thus as a young lawyer, still studying and 
 practising his profession, he gave his thought 
 to wide and yet wider themes, to large and yet 
 larger audiences, and entered upon his trium- 
 phant lecturing career. 
 
 So many thousands have seen and heard 
 him, in so many places and on so many subjects, 
 that it seems hardly worth while here to speak 
 of his manner and method on the platform—
 
 AN INTIMATE VIEW 69 
 
 only to say that as an orator he was the embodi- 
 ment of natural ease and grace, poise and 
 power. He used few gestures, — was not a desk- 
 pounder, an air-sawyer, or a stage-strutter. 
 He was not declamatory, — did not rant, or rage, 
 or "tear a passion to tatters, to very rags," as 
 the manner of some is, but following Hamlet's 
 advice to the players, he "used all gently, acquir- 
 ing and begetting a temperance that should give 
 all smoothness." His aim was to "hold the mir- 
 ror up to nature," and he did it wonderfully. In 
 his flights of eloquence he carried his audiences 
 with him, lifting them to the highest pinnacles 
 of enthusiasm, or stirring them to the deepest 
 recesses of their being. With his pathos he 
 melted them to tears and ere the drops were dry, 
 by his sparkling wit and humor, transformed 
 the pearls of pity into smiles of joy, or peals of 
 laughter. He was indeed a master-musician 
 who played upon every human heart-string. 
 
 It was a fine study to note him in the ante- 
 room both before and after the giving of a lec- 
 ture. Before, he was eager, expectant, almost 
 exultant at the prospect of again delivering his 
 message. His mood was cheerful and happy, 
 his countenance radiant with the anticipated 
 pleasure. He seemed at peace with himself and
 
 70 ROBERT G. INGERSOLL 
 
 with all the world. After, when many of his 
 friends gathered to offer their congratulations 
 and express tlieir admiration, he accepted their 
 praise with unfeigned satisfaction and the can- 
 dor of a happy child pleased with the praise of 
 a parent over some worthy performance. 
 
 It was no task for him to speak. He loved 
 to speak. It was to him an exultation. He 
 knew he had something to say and that he knew 
 how to say it. He usually carried his notes to the 
 platform. These notes were often in mere out- 
 line prepared from dictation to his secretary, 
 but sometimes quite fully printed in large type. 
 He was not a slave to his manuscript — seldom 
 followed it closely any distance. No one lecture 
 was precisely the same in its repeated deliveries. 
 After one or two presentations of a new lecture 
 he had it by head and tongue and heart and 
 \>l[' needed no prompting thereafter. 
 
 ALL MASTERPIECES. 
 
 The lectures that perhaps most fully satis- 
 fied him were : "The Liberty of Man, Woman 
 and Child," 'The Gods," "The Ghosts," "Ortho- 
 doxy," "Some Mistakes of Moses," "AVhich 
 Way?" "Myth and Miracle," "What Must We 
 do to be Saved?" "The Great Infidels," "Some
 
 AN INTIMATE VIEW 71 
 
 Reasons Why," "About the Holy Bible" and 
 "Shakespeare," — although he rarely expressed 
 a preference, simply accepted the verdict of his 
 friends. The truth is, that every one of his 
 more than sixty famous lectures and his hun- 
 dreds of great speeches, controversies, inter- 
 views, tributes, orations, prose-poems and legal 
 addresses was a masterpiece. The "Liberty" 
 lecture, however, was received with such popular 
 acclaim, and was so frequently demanded, that 
 he was disposed to regard it as probably the 
 most effective of his efforts. 
 
 On one occasion after its delivery in Wash- 
 ington, a United States Senator sought him and 
 said: "Colonel, you have converted me. 
 For years I have been estranged from 
 my only daughter because she did not marry 
 to please me, but now I shall go to her to-night, 
 and beg her forgiveness for allowing a selfish 
 pride to keep her from my arms and heart!" 
 Father and daughter were reconciled, and the 
 peace and joy then born in a happy home re- 
 mained a seal to the efficacy of the ColoneFs 
 teachings. Some said to him : "That is a great 
 sermon of yours. Colonel," referring to the 
 "Liberty" lecture. Others said, "What a great
 
 72 ROBERT G. INGERSOLL 
 
 preacher he would have made !" He never con- 
 sidered the remark a compliment. 
 
 ATTACKING CHERISHED BELIEFS. 
 
 '-' His Christian admirers sometimes said: 
 "Colonel, why don't you moderate your expres- 
 sions, qualify your speech, and be more careful 
 not to offend the susceptibilities of many of your 
 hearers, — your views would be so much better 
 received even if they were not adopted?" 'I'll 
 tell you why. I do not attack persons, but their 
 superstitions. I deal with opinions, not with 
 those who hold them. I do not war against 
 men. I do not war against persons. I war 
 against certain doctrines that I believe to be 
 wrong. But I give to every human being every 
 right that I claim for myself. 
 
 **I have not the slightest malice, no hate. A 
 victor never feels malice. I tell my honest 
 thought, my sincere belief, my earnest con- 
 victions." 
 
 To a preacher who urged him to deal more 
 gently with the beliefs cherished by many in his 
 audiences, he replied: "You do not exactly 
 appreciate my feeling. I do not hate Presbyter- 
 ians, I hate Presbyterianism. I hate with all my 
 heart the creed of that church, and I most
 
 AN INTIMATE VIEW 73 
 
 heartily despise the God described in the Con- 
 fession of Faith. Some of the best friends 
 I have in the world are afflicted with the mental 
 malady known as Presbyterianism. They are 
 the victims of the consolation growing out of the 
 belief that a vast majority of their fellow-men 
 are doomed to suffer eternal torment, to the end 
 that their Creator may be eternally glorified. I 
 have said many times, and I say again, that I 
 ^ do not despise a man because he has the rheu- 
 ^ matism; I despise the rheumatism because it 
 "^' has a man." "They tell me to use gentler ex- 
 pressions, and more cunning words. Do they 
 really wish me to make more converts? If 
 their advice is honest, they are traitors to their 
 trust. If their advice is not honest, then they 
 are unfair to me. Certainly they should wish 
 me to pursue the course that will make the 
 fewer converts, and yet they tell me how my^ 
 influence could be increased !" 
 
 THE MERCENARY BOGY. 
 
 ^ His enemies called him mercenary, saying 
 
 ^ that he lectured only for money, and cited the 
 
 unselfish example of the priests and preachers 
 
 who gave the gospel freely, "without money and 
 
 ^' without price." To such he replied : "Is it pos-
 
 74 ROBERT G. INGERSOLL 
 
 sible that, after preachers have had the field for 
 eighteen hundred years, the way to make money 
 is to attack the clergy? Is this intended as a 
 slander against me, or against the ministers? 
 
 "The trouble is that my arguments cannot 
 be answered. All the preachers in the world 
 cannot prove that slavery is better than liberty. 
 They cannot show that all have not an equal 
 right to think. They cannot show that all have 
 not an equal right to express their thoughts. 
 They cannot show that a decent God will punish 
 a decent man for making the best guess he 
 can." 
 
 "Not one of the orthodox ministers dares to 
 preach what he thinks, if he knows a majority of 
 his congregation thinks otherwise. He knows 
 that every member of his church stands guard 
 over his brain v/ith a creed, like a club, in his 
 hand. He knows' that he is not expected to 
 search after the truth, but that he is employed to 
 defend the creed. Every pulpit is a pillory, in 
 which stands a hired culprit, defending the jus- 
 tice of his own imprisonment." 
 
 "I do not depend upon lecturing for my 
 living. I am free, and my audiences are free. 
 They are under no obligation to attend. They 
 want to hear me and cheerfully pay the price.
 
 AN INTIMATE VIEW 75 
 
 If I did not charge for admission, Christians 
 would say, as some envious one have said, that 
 . only the lowest and vilest in a community flock 
 w to hear me." Just the contrary, of course, was 
 true, and these very slanderers — many of them 
 — ^wrote from every part of the land begging 
 him to lecture for the benefit of this or that 
 church or "cause" and give them the "proceeds." 
 The pastor of a colored Baptist church in 
 Texas once asked a contribution to help put a 
 new roof on his church, to replace one that had 
 been carried away by the wind. The Colonel 
 wrote that it looked to him as if God did not 
 want a new roof there, or he would not have 
 blown the old one off. Besides, he did not see 
 why any Baptist church should need a roof; 
 — "The wetter the better." Nevertheless, he sent 
 some help out of sympathy for the race that was 
 struggling to rise, and that he had so often and 
 so earnestly befriended ; but he said it passed his 
 comprehension, — except on the ground of their 
 well-known superstition, — how an enslaved race 
 could love a book that favored slavery, or a God 
 worshiped by a slaveholder, — how an intelligent 
 colored man or woman could ever be a 
 Christian ! 
 ^ Keplying further to those who said, "He can
 
 76 ROBERT G. INGERSOLL 
 
 afford to preach his blasphemy, — it brings him 
 applause as well as pecuniary reward," he used 
 to say that it was the greatest of compliments, 
 — an admission that his views were getting 
 popular and worth paying to hear. As we have 
 seen, he was not an avaricious man, but magnifi- 
 cently otherwise. He was ever more a spend- 
 thrift than a miser. There never lived a more 
 prodigally generous soul. There was not a 
 mean or sordid drop of blood in all his veins. 
 Nor did he care for mere personal popularity, — 
 avoided rather than courted it. He did delight 
 in noting year by year the growing acceptance 
 of his teachings. Once, after a visit to New 
 England, he said: **If I had spoken as freely 
 in Salem thirty years ago, as I have spoken in 
 Salem to-night, they would have burned me at 
 the stake." He was fond of saying that since he 
 had been trying to extinguish the flames, the 
 climate of hell had grown preceptibly cooler. 
 
 WHAT HIS VIEWS COST HIM. 
 
 The world little knows how much it cost 
 Mr. Ingersoll to speak his honest thought, to 
 utter the sincere and profound convictions of 
 his conscience, the voice of his inmost soul. If 
 sacrifice of earthly honors and emoluments, of
 
 AN INTIMATE VIEW 77 
 
 place and power, — prizes as dear to most men 
 as their lives, — is evidence of sincerity and de- 
 votion to principle, Mr. Ingersoll was sublimely 
 sincere, unselfish, and self-sacrificing, and 
 truthful history will so record him. 
 
 His heterodoxy cost him the Governorship of 
 Illinois. A delegation made up of friends and 
 admirers of both political parties, urged his 
 acceptance of the nomination, which meant cer- 
 tain election, but coupled the offer with the con- 
 dition that he pledge himself not to touch on 
 religious topics during the campaign. He de- 
 clined the nomination. He would have made 
 an ideal Governor. His large acquaintance 
 with public men and measures, his own experi- 
 ence as a public official — as Attorney-General 
 of the State — his fame as a campaign orator, 
 his recognized ability and integrity, his ardent 
 patriotism and fearless advocacy of the rights 
 of man, and his world-wide human sympathies, 
 — all his great gifts and endowments, — marked 
 him as one worthy of the highest civic honors. 
 
 But he did not covet office. He rejected all 
 overtures in that direction. His friends often 
 broached the subject. He refused to consider 
 it. He was offered the post of Minister to Ger- 
 many in 1877, but declined it. In 1882 a dele-
 
 78 ROBERT G. INGERSOLL 
 
 gation in Washington waited on him seeking 
 his consent to be a candidate for the Presidency 
 of the United States. He declined the honor, 
 saying that on no account would he permit the 
 use of his name. "I do not wish," he said, "to 
 bring the heat and rancor of religious discussion 
 and dissension into politics." No office would 
 have been too great or high for him to reach and 
 fill had he consented to conceal his real thought, 
 to be a time-server and a hypocrite. 
 
 NOT A LEADER. 
 
 He, in fact, aspired to no personal leader- 
 ship of any kind. He asked for no "disciples," 
 sought no "followers." He wanted men to 
 think his way, but to carry out their convictions 
 in their own way; he would not lead them. He 
 was not a proselytist or a propagandist. He 
 could have founded a school, a sect, a system. 
 He would not. He disliked and discouraged 
 the use of the term "Ingersollism" that some 
 applied to his views, and disavowed and, so far 
 as he could, prevented the spread of it. He was, 
 and wanted to be known as, an "Individualist." 
 
 He did not fully favor organizations on the 
 lines of religious or anti-religious belief; was 
 not always in sympathy with Freethought or
 
 AN INTIMATE VIEW 79 
 
 Liberal organizations, as such. Although he 
 agreed iii the main with their principles and 
 aims he could not always endorse or commend 
 their methods, and because of such disagree- 
 ment at one time resigned the presidency of the 
 Liberal League. His trouble with these so- 
 cieties was that like most fraternal associations, 
 with all their merits and uses, they tended to 
 foster exclusiveness, class distinctions and sec- 
 tarianism. He did not believe in caste, he did 
 not divide society into sheep and goats, good and 
 bad, sinners and saints, but into plain men 
 and women without their emblems or regalia. 
 Many of his friends thought him wrong in this 
 attitude of aloofness, considered him unduly 
 sensitive and ideal, but he was satisfied with 
 his ideal; he only wished as an individual unit 
 in society to act his own part well, to think and 
 speak and act from the best and highest in him, 
 and to help others do the same. While not 
 condemning orders and unions and fraternities, 
 but recognizing their value and the need of 
 combination and co-operation to effect certain 
 ends for the general welfare, he yet felt that in 
 the individual lay the real power to improve 
 and regenerate society. His broader member- 
 ship was with the race. Each man he held a
 
 80 ROBERT G. INGERSOLL 
 
 brother, if he could find in him a man, and he 
 despised no one, however lowly, for the mere 
 accident of birth or circumstance. 
 
 His charity and compassion were unbound- 
 ed. He could see and condone the faults and 
 frailties of others. "He does as he must," was 
 his theorem explaining all human action. He 
 was broad and universal enough to announce 
 this splendid creed : "The firmament inlaid with 
 stars is the dome of the real cathedral. The 
 interpreters of nature are the true and only 
 priests. In the great creed are all the truths 
 that lips have uttered, and in the real litany 
 will be found all the ecstasies and aspirations 
 of the soul, all dreams of joy, all hopes for 
 nobler, fuller life. The real church, the real 
 edifice, is adorned and glorified with all that 
 Art has done. In the real choir is all the thrill- 
 ing music of the world, and in the starlit aisles 
 have been, and are, the grandest souls of every 
 land and clime. 
 
 "There is no darkness but ignorance." 
 
 "Let US flood the world with intellectual 
 light."
 
 y 
 
 AN INTIMATE VIEW 81 
 
 VI. 
 
 LIBERTY. 
 
 Here let me state in his own unequalled 
 words and way a few of his many lofty senti- 
 ments. Of Liberty he said: "0 Liberty, thou 
 art the god of my idolatry!'* It was one of 
 his most fervent apostrophes. He worshiped 
 at its shrine. It was his dream, his ideal, his 
 hope for man. He was one of its greatest 
 apostles. More than any man of his day he 
 wrote and spoke and labored for an unshackled 
 healthy brain, an untrammelled truthful tongue. 
 
 His attitude concerning freedom of thought, 
 and its expression, he gives us in these emphatic 
 V7ords, taken from the opening of his "Liberty" 
 lecture : 
 
 "There rs no slavery but ignorance. Lib- 
 erty is the child of intelligence." 
 
 "Only a few years ago there was a great 
 awakening of the human mind. Men began to 
 inquire by what right a crowned robber made 
 them work for him. The man who asked this 
 question was called a traitor. Others asked by 
 what right does a robed hypocrite rule my 
 thought? Such men were called infidels. The
 
 82 ROBERT G. INGERSOLL 
 
 priest said, and the king said, where is this 
 spirit of investigation to stop? They said th^^n 
 and they say now, that it is dangerous for mcin 
 to be free. I deny it. Out on the intellectual 
 ocean there is room enough for every sail. In 
 the intellectual air there is space enough for 
 every wing. 
 
 "The man who does not do his own thinking 
 is a slave, and is a traitor to himself and to his 
 fellow-men. 
 
 "Every man should stand under the blue and 
 stars, under the infinite flag of nature, the peer 
 of every other man. 
 
 "Standing in the presence of the Unknown, 
 all have the same right to think, and all are 
 equally interested in the great questions of ori- 
 gin and destiny. All I claim, all I plead for, 
 is liberty of thought and expression. That is 
 all. 
 
 "I do not pretend to tell all the truth. I 
 do not claim that I have floated level with the 
 heights of thought, or that I have descended 
 to the very depths of things. I simply claim 
 that what ideas I have, I have a right to ex- 
 press; and that any man who denies that right 
 to me is an intellectual thief and robber. That 
 is all."
 
 AN INTIMATE VIEW 83 
 
 "I swear that while I live I will do what little 
 I can to preserve and to augment the liberties 
 of man, woman, and child. 
 
 "It is a question of justice, of mercy, of hon- 
 esty, of intellectual development. If there is a 
 man in the world who is not willing to give to 
 every human being every right he claims for 
 himself, he is just so much nearer a barbarian 
 than I am. It is a question of honesty. The 
 man who is not willing to give to every other 
 the same intellectual rights he claims for him- 
 self, is dishonest, selfish, and brutal." 
 
 "This is my doctrine: Give every other hu- 
 man being every right you claim for yourself. 
 Keep your mind open to influences of nature. 
 Receive new thoughts with hospitality. Let us 
 advance." 
 
 "As far as I am concerned I wish to be out 
 on the high seas. I wish to take my chances 
 with wind, and wave, and star. And I had 
 rather go down in the glory and grandeur of 
 the storm, than rot in any orthodox harbor." 
 
 "As a man develops, he places a greater 
 value upon his own rights. Liberty becomes a 
 grander and diviner thing. As he values his 
 own rights he begins to value the rights of 
 others. And when all men give to all others all
 
 84 ROBERT G. INGERSOLL 
 
 the rights they claim for themselves, this world 
 will be civilized." 
 
 "We have advanced. We have reaped the 
 benefit of every sublime and heroic self-sacrifice, 
 of every divine and brave act; and we should 
 endeavor to hand the torch to the next genera- 
 tion, having added a little to the intensity and 
 glory of the flame." 
 
 "With every drop of my blood I hate and 
 execrate every form of tyranny, every form of 
 slavery. I hate dictation. I love liberty. 
 
 "What do I mean by liberty? By physical 
 liberty I mean the right to do anything which 
 does not interfere with the happiness of an- 
 other. By intellectual liberty I mean the right 
 to think right and the right to think wrong. 
 Thought is the means by which we endeavor to 
 arrive at truth. 
 
 "Should I not give the real transcript of my 
 mind? Or should I turn hypocrite and pretend 
 what I do not feel, and hate myself forever 
 after for being a cringing coward?" 
 
 "Above all creeds, above all religions, after 
 all, is that divine thing, — Humanity; and now 
 and then in shipwreck on the wide, wild sea, or 
 'mid the rocks and breakers of some cruel shore, 
 or where the serpents of flame writhe and hiss,
 
 AN Intimate view 85 
 
 some glorious heart, some chivalric soul does a 
 deed that glitters like a star, and gives the lie 
 to all the dogmas of superstition. All these 
 frightful doctrines have been used to degrade 
 and to enslave mankind. 
 
 "Away, forever away, with the creeds and 
 books and forms and laws and religions that 
 take from the soul liberty and reason. Down 
 with the idea that thought is dangerous! Per- 
 ish the infamous doctrine that man can have 
 property in man. Let us resent with indigna- 
 tion every effort to put a chain upon our minds. 
 If there is no God, certainly we should not bow 
 and cringe and crawl. If there is a God, there 
 should be no slave." 
 
 "0 Liberty, thou art the god of my idolatry! 
 Thou art the only deity that hateth bended 
 knees. In thy vast and unwalled temple, be- 
 neath the roofless dome, star-gemmed and lum- 
 inous with suns, thy worshipers stand erect! 
 They do not cringe, or crawl, or bend their fore- 
 heads to the earth. The dust has never borne 
 the impress of their lips. Upon thy altars 
 mothers do not sacrifice their babes, nor men 
 their rights. Thou askest naught from man ex- 
 cept the things that good men hate — the wh^'p, 
 the chain, the dungeon key. Thou hast no popes,
 
 86 ROBERT G. INGERSOLL 
 
 no priests, who stand between their fellow-men 
 and thee. Thou carest not for foolish forms, or 
 selfish prayers. At thy sacred shrine hypocrisy 
 does not bow, virtue does not tremble, supersti- 
 tion's feeble tapers do not burn, but Reason 
 holds aloft her inextinguishable torch whose 
 holy light will one day flood the world." 
 
 TRUTH. 
 
 He exalted Truth — pure, unadulterated, un- 
 masked. "Sacred are the lips," he said, ''from 
 which has issued only truth." 
 
 "Truth is the intellectual wealth of the 
 world. 
 
 "The noblest of occupations is to search for 
 truth. 
 
 "Truth is the foundation, the superstruc- 
 ture, and the glittering dome of progress. 
 
 "Truth is the mother of joy. Truth civil- 
 izes, ennobles, and purifies. The grandest am- 
 bition that can enter the soul is to know the 
 truth. 
 
 "Truth gives man the greatest power for 
 good. Truth is sword and shield. It is the 
 sacred light of the soul. 
 
 "The man who finds a truth lights a torch." 
 
 "Sacred are the lips from which has issued
 
 AN INTIMATE VIEW 87 
 
 only truth. Over all wealth, above all station, 
 above the noble, the robed and crowned, rises the 
 sincere man. Happy is the man who neither 
 paints nor patches, veils nor veneers! Blessed 
 is he who wears no mask." 
 
 LOVE. 
 
 He exalted and enthroned the god of Love, — 
 of sacred human love. In words that elsewhere 
 have no counterpart, he has embalmed for us 
 his thought in this marvellous piece of literary 
 amber: 
 
 "Love is the only bow on Life's dark cloud. 
 It is the Morning and the Evening Star. It 
 shines upon the cradle of the babe, and sheds 
 its radiance on the quiet tomb. It is the mother 
 of Art — inspirer of poet, patriot and philoso- 
 pher. It is the air and light of every heart — 
 builder of every home — kindler of every fire on 
 every hearth. It was the first to dream of im- 
 mortality. It fills the world with melody, for 
 music is the voice of Love. Love is the magi- 
 cian, the enchanter, that changes worthless 
 things to joy, and makes right royal kings and 
 queens of common clay. It is the perfume of 
 that wondrous flower — the heart — and without 
 that sacred passion, that divine swoon, we are
 
 88 ROBERT G. INGERSOLL 
 
 less than beasts — but with it, earth is heaven, 
 and we are gods/' 
 
 LIFE. 
 
 Has any one but the immortal bard ever pro- 
 duced a parallel to this living portrait of a 
 human life, — of his own life, — from the cradle 
 to the grave? 
 
 **Born of bve and hope, of ecstacy and pain, 
 of agony and fear, of tears and joy — dowered 
 with the wealth of two united hearts — held in 
 happy arms, with lips upon life's drifted font 
 blue-veined and fair, where perfect peace finds 
 perfect form — rocked by willing feet and wooed 
 to shadovry shores of sleep by siren mother sing- 
 ing soft and low — looking with wonder's wide 
 and startled eyes at common things of life and 
 day — taught by want and wish and contact with 
 the things that touch the dimpled flesh of babes 
 — lured by light and flame, and charmed by 
 color's wondrous robes — learning the use of 
 hands and feet, and by the love of mimicry 
 beguiled to utter speech — releasing prisoned 
 thoughts from crabbed and curious marks on 
 soiled and tattered leaves — ^puzzling the brain 
 with crooked numbers and their changing, tan- 
 gled worth — and so through years of alternat-
 
 AN INTIMATE VIEW 89 
 
 ing day and night, until the captive grows fami- 
 liar with the chains and walls and limitations 
 of a life. 
 
 "And time runs on in sun and shade, until 
 the one of all the world is wooed and won, and 
 all the lore of love is taught and learned again. 
 Again a home is built with the fair chamber 
 wherein faint dreams, like cool and shadowy 
 vales divide the billowed hours of love. Again 
 the miracle of a birth — the pain and joy, the kiss 
 of welcome and the cradle-song drowning the 
 drowsy prattle of a babe. 
 
 "And then the sense of obligation and of 
 wrong — pity for those who toil and weep — tears 
 for the imprisoned and despised — love for the 
 generous dead, and in the heart the rapture of 
 a high resolve. 
 
 "And then ambition, with its lust of pelf and 
 place and power, longing to put upon its breast 
 distinction's worthless badge. Then keener 
 thoughts of men, and eyes that see behind the 
 ^miling mask of craft — flattered no more by the 
 obsequious cringe of gain and greed — knowing 
 the uselessness of hoarded gold — of honor 
 bought from those who charge the usury of self- 
 respect — of power that only bends a coward's 
 knees and forces from the lips of fear the lies
 
 9a ROBERT G. INGERSOLL 
 
 of praise. Knowing at last the unstudied ges- 
 ture of esteem, the reverent eyes made rich with 
 honest thought, and holding high above all other 
 things — high as hope's great throbbing star 
 above the darkness of the dead — the love of wife 
 and child and friend. 
 
 "Then locks of gray, and growing love of 
 other days and half-remembered things — then 
 holding withered hands of those who first held 
 his, while over dim and loving eyes death softly 
 presses down the lids of rest. 
 
 "And so, locking in marriage vows his child- 
 ren's hands and crossing others on the breasts 
 of peace, with daughter's babes upon his knees, 
 the white hair mingling with the gold, he jour- 
 neys on from day to day to that horizon where 
 the dusk is waiting for the night. — At last, sit- 
 ting by the holy hearth of home as evenings' 
 embers change from red to gray, he falls asleep 
 within the arms of her he worshiped and adored, 
 feeling upon his pallid lips love's last and holi- 
 est kiss." 
 
 Nor has this autograph of his own life ever 
 been supplemented with a finer touch than he 
 gives us in these lines: "Life is a shadowy, 
 strange, and winding road on which we travel 
 for a little way — a few short steps — ^just from
 
 AN INTIMATE VIEW 91 
 
 the cradle, with its lullaby of love, to the low 
 and quiet way-side inn, where all at last must 
 sleep, and where the only salutation is — Good- 
 night!" Or that other peerless paragraph, 
 which I here requote, from the tribute to his 
 brother Ebon: "Life is a narrow vale between 
 the cold and barren peaks of two eternities. 
 We strive in vain to look beyond the heights. 
 We cry aloud, and the only answer is the echo 
 of our wailing cry. From the voiceless lips of 
 the unreplying dead there comes no word; but 
 in the night of death hope sees a star and listen- 
 ing love can hear the rustle of a wing." 
 
 HOPE. 
 
 Of Hope he has beautifully said: "Hope is 
 the only bee that makes honey without flowers." 
 
 "Hope is the consolation of the world. 
 
 "The wanderers hope for home. — Hope 
 builds the house and plants the flowers and fills 
 the air with song. 
 
 "The sick and suffering hope for health. — 
 Hope gives them health and paints the roses in 
 their cheeks. 
 
 "The lonely, the forsaken, hope for love. — 
 Hope brings the lover to their arms. They feel 
 the kisses on their eager lips.
 
 92 ROBERT G. INGERSOLL 
 
 "The poor in tenements and huts, in spfte of 
 rags and hunger, hope for wealth. — Hope fills 
 their thin and trembling hands with gold. 
 
 "The dying hopes that death is but another 
 birth,^ and Love leans above the pallid face and 
 whispers, 'We shall meet again.* 
 
 "Let us hope, that if there be a God, he 
 is wise and good. 
 
 "Let us hope that if there be another life, it 
 will bring peace and joy to all the children of 
 men. 
 
 "And let us hope that this poor earth on 
 which we live, may be a perfect world — a world 
 without a crime — without a tear." 
 
 And following this, to express his own feel- 
 ing and purpose in his work, he said: "I would 
 not for anything blot out the faintest star that 
 shines in the horizon of human despair, or in 
 the sky of human hope ; but I will do what I can 
 to get the infinite shadow of eternal torment out 
 of the heart of man." 
 
 ^ Of the hope of a future life he said: "The 
 idea of immortality, that like a sea has ebbed 
 and flowed in the human heart, with its count- 
 less waves of hope and fear beating against the 
 shores and rocks of time and fate, was not born 
 of any book, nor of any creed, nor of any re-
 
 AN INTIMATE VIEW 93 
 
 ligion. It was born of human affection, and it 
 will continue to ebb and flow beneath the mists 
 and clouds of doubt and darkness as long as 
 love kisses the lips of death. It is the rainbow, 
 Hope, shining upon the tears of grief." . 
 
 HOME. 
 
 Who, with lip or pen or brush, save only 
 Robert Burns, has ever given us as graphic or 
 exalted pictures of the fireside as Robert G. In- 
 gersoll? He glorified, even as he exemplified, 
 the joys and virtues of domestic life. He said, 
 "The home where virtue dwells with love is like 
 a lily with a heart of fire — the fairest flower in 
 all the world." ''The holiest temple beneath the 
 stars is a home that love has built. And the 
 holiest altar in all the wide world is the fireside 
 around which gather father and mother and the 
 sweet babes." 
 
 "If in this world there is anything splendid, 
 it is a home where all are equals." 
 
 "Around the fireside cluster the private and 
 the public virtues of our race." 
 
 "The home, after all, is the unit of civiliza- 
 tion, of good government." 
 
 "Without the family relation there is no life
 
 94 ROBERT G. INGERSOLL 
 
 worth living. Every good government is made 
 up of good families." 
 
 * 'Nothing is more important to America 
 than that the babes of America should be born 
 around the fireside of home." 
 
 "If upon this earth we ever have a glimpse 
 of heaven, it is when we pass a home in winter, 
 at night, and through the windows, the curtains 
 drawn aside, we see the family about the pleas- 
 ant hearth ; the old lady knitting ; the cat play- 
 ing with the yarn; the children wishing they 
 had as many dolls or dollars or knives or some- 
 things, as there are sparks going out to join the 
 roaring blast ; the father reading and smoking, 
 and the clouds rising like incense from the 
 altar of domestic joy. I never passed such a 
 house without feeling that I had received a 
 benediction." 
 
 "Honor, place, fame, glory, riches — they are 
 ashes, smoke, dust, disappointment, unless there 
 is somebody in the world you love, somebody 
 who loves you; unless there is some place that 
 you can call home, some place where you can 
 feel the arms of children around your neck, 
 some place that is made absolutely sacred by 
 the love of others."
 
 AN INTIMATE VIEW 95 
 
 AMBITION. 
 
 Mr. Ingersoll was ambitious. He consider- 
 ed true ambition to be the father of progress. 
 Every man, he said, should have a worthy ideal, 
 and strive to attain it by all the best and highest 
 in him. But his ambition was not for place or 
 power, — ^he did not want to rule anybody. He 
 craved no laurels won on fields of conquest or 
 aggression. His ideals were higher. His 
 goal was human happiness — "the greatest good 
 of the greatest number," and he welcomed and 
 extolled everything that contributed to it. He 
 sought the richer prizes of life in the private 
 and civic virtues — in the fields of art and 
 thought, invention and discovery, and in the 
 fruits of skilful industry of hand and brain. 
 Above all, he placed the aristocracy of the fire- 
 side, and esteemed the kind and just man, the 
 loving father and husband, the peer of prince 
 and potentate. He loved to quote these lines of 
 Burns on domestic felicity: 
 
 "To make a happy fireside clime 
 For weans and wife, 
 Is the true pathos and sublime 
 Of human life." 
 
 And by way of contrast he paints for us this
 
 96 ROBERT G. INGERSOLL 
 
 vivid picture of Napoleon the Great and the 
 humble but happy French peasant: 
 
 "A little while ago, I stood by the grave of 
 the old Napoleon — a magnificent tomb of gilt 
 and gold, fit almost for a deity dead — and gazed 
 upon the sarcophagus of rare and nameless 
 marble, where rest at last the ashes of that rest- 
 less man. I leaned over the balustrade and 
 thought about the career of the greatest soldier 
 of the modern world. 
 
 "I saw him walking upon the banks of the 
 Seine, contemplating suicide. I saw him at 
 Toulon — I saw him putting down the mob in 
 the streets of Paris — I saw him at the head of 
 the army of Italy — I saw him crossing the 
 bridge of Lodi with the tri-color in his hand — 
 I saw him in Egypt in the shadows of the Pyra- 
 mids — I saw him conquer the Alps and mingle 
 the eagles of France with the eagles of the 
 crags. I saw him at Marengo — at Ulm and 
 Austerlitz. I saw him in Russia, where the 
 infantry of the snow and the cavalry of the wild 
 blast scattered his legions like winter's withered 
 leaves. I saw him at Leipsic in defeat and dis- 
 aster — driven by a million bayonets back upon 
 Paris — clutched like a wild beast — banished to 
 Elba. I saw him escape and retake an empire
 
 AN INTIMATE VIEW 97 
 
 by the force of his genius. I saw him upon the 
 frightful field of Waterloo, where Chance and 
 Fate combined to wreck the fortunes of their 
 former king. And I saw him at St. Helena, 
 with his hands crossed behind him, gazing out 
 upon the sad and solemn sea. 
 
 "I thought of the orphans and widows he 
 had made — of the tears that had been shed for 
 his glory, and of the only woman who ever loved 
 him, pushed from his heart by the cold hand of 
 ambition. And I said, I would rather have been 
 a French peasant and worn wooden shoes. I 
 would rather have lived in a hut with a vine 
 growing over the door, and the grapes growing 
 purple in the kisses of the Autumn sun. 
 I would rather have been that poor peasant, 
 with my loving wife by my side, knitting 
 as the day died out of the sky — with my child- 
 ren upon my knees and their arms about me — 
 I would rather have been that man and gone 
 down to the tongueless silence of the dream- 
 less dust, than to have been that imperial 
 impersonation of force and murder, known as 
 Napoleon the Great."
 
 98 ROBERT G. INGERSOLL 
 
 SCIENCE. 
 
 Everywhere and always he glorified the 
 Deity of Science — child of the blessed Trinity, 
 Reason, Observation and Experience. His 
 works abound in eloquent praise of its achieve- 
 ments. Among other passages he gives us this : 
 
 "Science took a handful of sand, constructed 
 a telescope, and with it explored the starry 
 depths of heaven. Science wrested from the 
 gods their thunderbolts; and now, the electric 
 spark, freighted with thought and love, 
 flashes under all the waves of the sea. 
 Science took a tear from the cheek of unpaid 
 labor, converted it into steam and created a 
 giant that turns with tireless arm the countless 
 wheels of toil." 
 
 "Science is the providence of man, the v/ork- 
 er of true miracles, of real wonders. Science 
 has *read a little in Nature^s infinite book of 
 secrecy.' Science knows the circuits of the 
 winds, the courses of the stars. Fire is his 
 servant, and lightning his messenger. Science 
 freed the slaves and gave liberty to their mas- 
 ters. Science taught men to enchain, not his 
 fellows, but the forces of nature, forces that 
 have no backs to be scarred, no limbs for chains
 
 ' AN INTIMATE VIEW 99 
 
 to chill and eat, forces that have no hearts to 
 break, forces that never know fatigue, forces 
 that shed no tears. Science is the great physi- 
 cian. His touch has given sight. He has made 
 the lame to leap, the deaf to hear, the dumb to 
 speak, and in the pallid face his hand has set the 
 rose of health. Science has given his beloved 
 sleep and wrapped in happy dreams the throb- 
 bing nerves of pain. Science is the destroyer of 
 disease, builder of happy homes, the preserver of 
 life and love. Science is the teacher of eveiy vir- 
 tue, the enemy of every vice. Science has given 
 the true basis of morals, the origin and office 
 of conscience, revealed the nature of obligation, 
 of duty, of virtue in its highest, noblest forms, 
 and has demonstrated that true happiness is the 
 only possible good. Science has slain the mon- 
 sters of superstition, and destroyed the author- 
 ity of inspired books. Science has read the 
 records of the rocks, records that priestcraft 
 cannot change, and on his wondrous scales has 
 weighed the atom and the star. 
 
 "Science has founded the only true religion. 
 Science is the onlji^ Savior of this world."
 
 100 ROBERT G. INGERSOLL 
 
 VII. 
 
 THE "DRESDEN" EDITION. 
 
 And SO I might go on quoting and quoting. 
 It is difficult to forbear. It is a feast, mental 
 and spiritual, to sit at the banquet spread so 
 bountifully for us in the thirteen beautiful vol- 
 umes containing the published works of Mr. 
 Ingersoll in their ^'Dresden" setting, — so-called 
 after the little village in New York State which 
 was the author's birthplace. I am tempted to 
 linger at the feast for more of the delicious bits 
 of poetry, philosophy, feeling, wit, wisdom, hu- 
 mor and loving-kindness that abound on every 
 page and in almost every line. The limits of 
 this sketch forbid the indulgence. Wliat he has 
 said on Education, Art, Science, — on Poetry, 
 Music and Fiction, — on Justice, Liberty, Equal- 
 ity and the Rights of Man, — On Worship, Rev- 
 erence and True Religion, — on Orthodoxy and 
 Agnosticism, — on Government, Finance, Domes- 
 tic and Political Economy, and on a thousand 
 other living human topics — for he has vibrated 
 every chord — would take many more books to 
 hold, and every book a glittering mine.
 
 AN INTIMATE VIEW 101 
 
 OPTIMISM VS. PESSIMISM. 
 
 Some called him a pessimist. He was not. 
 He enjoyed more than suffered, hoped more than 
 despaired. It is true that when he considered 
 the agonies and miseries of life, the sickness and 
 disease, the poverty and crime, the ignorance 
 and superstition, the follies and failures, the 
 human wrecks on every shore ; when he thought 
 of the savagery of tooth and beak and claw; of 
 the fury of the elements, — of wind and fire 
 of flood, of earthquakes, lightnings and vol- 
 canoes, of drought and pestilence and famine 
 and all the evils that afflict the race from with- 
 out or within, and of the final tragedy await- 
 ing all, he groaned in spirit and felt and said 
 that this was not a good world. He went 
 further and had the courage that some called 
 audacity, and others blasphemy, to say what 
 millions think but fear to say, that if, as a man 
 he had been given the power and commission to 
 make a world, he certainly would have made a 
 better one than this, or gone out of the business ! 
 This was said seriously, not vaingloriously. To 
 one who asked him what improvement he would 
 suggest in the order of things, he immediately
 
 102 ROBERT G. INGERSOLL 
 
 replied: "Well, for one thing, I would make 
 health catching instead of disease." 
 
 On the other hand, when he considered the 
 beautiful, good and true; the sunshine and the 
 flowers, the blossoming spring and ripening 
 harvest ; the warm and fructifying showers, the 
 cool and shady glens, the vine-clad hills and 
 richly verdant vales and all the varying charms 
 of Nature in her gentler moods; when he saw 
 the roses on the cheeks of health, heard the songs 
 of happy birds and hum of busy bees in sweet 
 pursuit, and merry shouts of childi^en at their 
 play; when he saw the many open hands of 
 sympathy and aid, the generous and noble deeds 
 of great heroic souls, the glorious triumphs of 
 genius in fields of art and song, the wonderful 
 achievements of science in invention and dis- 
 covery and the many marvellous products of in- 
 dustrial skill; and when he thought of happy 
 homes and loving hearts and helpful hands 
 through all the years, — when he looked and 
 thought on these he hoped, he dreamed, he 
 prophesied, a brighter future for his race. He 
 believed the world was growing better, freer, 
 happier, every day, and he was doing what he 
 could to make it so. In prophetic vision he saw 
 "Our country filled with happy homes, with
 
 AN INTIMATE VIEW 103 
 
 firesides of content, — the foremost land of all 
 the earth." 
 
 Looking into the future with unclouded eye, 
 he said: 
 
 "I see a world where thrones have crumbled 
 and where kings are dust. The aristocracy of 
 idleness has perished from the earth. 
 
 "I see a world without a slave. Man at last 
 is free. Nature's forces have by Science been 
 enslaved. Lightning and light, wind and wave, 
 frost and flame, and all the secret, subtle powers 
 of earth and air are the tireless toilers for the 
 human race. 
 
 "I see a world at peace, adorned with every 
 form of art, with music's myriad voices thrilled, 
 while lips are rich with words of love and truth ; 
 — a world in which no exile sighs, no prisoner 
 mourns; — a world on which the gibbet's shad- 
 ow does not fall; — a world where labor reaps 
 its full reward ; where work and worth go hand 
 in hand ; where the poor girl trying to win bread 
 with the needle — the needle that has been called 
 'the asp for the breast of the poor,' — is not 
 driven to the desperate choice of crime or death, 
 of suicide or shame. 
 
 "I see a world without the beggar's out- 
 stretched palm, the miser's heartless, stony
 
 104 ROBERT G. INGERSOLL 
 
 stare, the piteous wail of want, the livid lips of 
 lies, the cruel eyes of scorn. 
 
 "I see a race without disease of flesh or 
 brain, — shapely and fair, — the married har- 
 mony of form and function, — and, as I look, 
 life lengthens, joy deepens, love canopies the 
 earth; and over all, in the great dome, shines 
 the eternal star of human hope." 
 
 For himself, he said that when he struck the 
 balance, this life had been to him worth living. 
 This was optimism. 
 
 HIS INTELLECTUAL INTIMATES. 
 
 Mr. Ingersoll dwelt with all the great and 
 noble souls that ever lived. They were his ac- 
 quaintances, his friends, his intimates. With 
 them he held constant mental intercourse. He 
 studied their words and works, admired and 
 eulogized their lofty deeds, their high ideals. 
 He rescued from the obloquy of spite and hate 
 the illustrious names of noble martyrs to the 
 truth, of whom the world was not worthy, — 
 the names of Bruno and Spinoza, Voltaire and 
 Paine, Hume and Elizur Wright, with those of 
 other great infidels and reformers of their day 
 and time. He gloried in the fame of all the 
 great and good scientists and philosophers,
 
 AN INTIMATE VIEW 106 
 
 philanthropists and patriots who, in the realms 
 of thought, and by heroic deeds in fields of 
 action, have enlarged, enriched and ennobled 
 life, — names that were ever in his mind and 
 often on his lips of praise, — names that will not 
 die, — the names of Darwin, Huxley, Spencer 
 and Tyndall; of Humboldt and Haeckel; of 
 Socrates, Plato and Epictetus; of Buddha, 
 Brahma and Confucius, Aristotle and Aurelius ; 
 of Lincoln ai>d Washington, Franklin and Jef- 
 ferson; of Draper and Gibbon; of Buckle and 
 Locke and Lecky; of Wilberforce, Howard, 
 Burke and Bright; of Kossuth, Lafayette and 
 Rochambeau ; of Grant and Sherman and Sheri- 
 dan, Farragut and Ericsson — ^with other heroes 
 in great strifes for the Right and the Rights of 
 Man. 
 
 In the realms of space he took his flights 
 with Newton and Kepler, Copernicus and Gali- 
 leo, Herschel and Laplace, with Proctor and 
 Mitchell, and other dwellers in the infinite skies, 
 companions of the stars, who "drew from them 
 their secrets and told them down to men." He 
 sailed the unknown seas with Columbus and the 
 Cabots, with Magellan and the other brave mari- 
 ners of the dawn, and with them landed on the 
 shores of a new and wide and glorious world.
 
 106 ROBERT G. INGERSOLL 
 
 He rejoiced and shared in the inventions and 
 discoveries of Stephenson and Watt, of Gutten- 
 berg and Arkwright, of Galvani and Marconi, 
 of Morse and Field, of Edison and Bell, and all 
 the minds whose thought has widened out the 
 world to commerce, fellowship and final peace. 
 And above all, and before all, he placed his Sha- 
 kespeare among the immortals, with Burns sing- 
 ing by his side the sweetest of Nature's songs. 
 He believed that George Eliot, Harriet Marti- 
 neau and Mrs. Browning were the greatest of 
 female thinkers and writers of the English 
 world, and that Charles Dickens was the great- 
 est novelist. 
 
 He was strongly emotional in temperament. 
 A man of his fine feeling and tender suscepti- 
 bility could not be otherwise. With such a 
 nature, joined to a clear judgment and keen ap- 
 preciation of the beautiful and great in art and 
 men, it is small wonder that he was the ardent 
 admirer of his intellectual comrades, and in elo- 
 quent eulogy extolled their words and works. 
 He was enraptured with the music of Wagner, 
 Beethoven, Verdi and Schubert; devoted friend 
 of those mimic artists who held the mirror 
 for him on the stage, — his Forrests, Booths and 
 Barretts, and his Rip Van Winkle- Jeff ersons.
 
 AN INTIMATE VIEW 107 
 
 He exalted, if he could only hope to emulate, the 
 silver tongues of his brother orators, the Ciceros, 
 Demosthenes', Lineolns, Phillips' and Beechers 
 — and who will say he was not the worthy peer 
 of them all? 
 
 He held in very high regard those masters 
 of the brush who painted his pictures for him, 
 his Angelos and Raphaels, Rembrandts and Co- 
 rots, and, in truth, all the other shining stars 
 in his heavens — the writers, singers, sculptors, 
 artists and artisans — a glorious company — ^per- 
 formers with him in the wonderful drama who 
 by their genius have added to the beauty, worth 
 and joy of life. His companionship was with 
 them all, and he had hope, he said, for the race 
 that could produce and admire, exalt and emu- 
 late such souls. 
 
 HIS PRACTICAL PHILANTHROPY. 
 
 Mr. Ingersoll never lost sight of his kinship 
 with men. Recognizing the grades and classes of 
 humanity, he was ready at all times to meet the 
 demands of human sympathy and brotherhood. 
 Knowing sadly enough the many impositions 
 practised by the unworthy poor, nevertheless, 
 his heart and hand instinctively opened to the 
 appeal of suffering and want. His quick sym-
 
 108 ROBERT G. INGERSOLL 
 
 pathies and generous impulses guided him, and 
 were for him better guides than cold and 
 calculating judgment. He did not stop to in- 
 quire, to investigate, — he gave. He relieved 
 the present necessity, and did not lecture or 
 preach to any recipient of his bounty. He did 
 not reproach the weak, the ignorant, or deprav- 
 ed, — he pitied and forgave. His attitude to- 
 ward the sinful and sorrowful was ever like 
 that of the Peasant of Palestine: ^'Neither do 
 I condemn thee." 
 
 He gave freely of the treasures of his mind. 
 He counseled, criticised and encouraged many in 
 their literary and artistic aspirations. His 
 home and office were often like editorial sanc- 
 tums, — piled with authors' manuscripts sub- 
 mitted for his opinion and revision. Scores of 
 introductions, reviews of books, plays and poems 
 were written by him for those who requested it. 
 Recognized as an art connoisseur of fine percep- 
 tion and rare judgment, painters and sculptors 
 submitted their work to his inspection. He wel- 
 comed and aided them. 
 
 "let us smoke in this world.*' 
 
 Commercial travellers were fond of him and 
 he of them. The "smoker" in the Pullman car.
 
 AN INTIMATE VIEW 109 
 
 the hotel lobby and his private room were mild- 
 ly invaded by them, seeking his acquaintance 
 and regard. Once in the Southern Hotel in 
 Saint Louis a young man told his tale of dis- 
 couragement. "I am travelling for a tobacco 
 house," he said, "and have been in very poor 
 luck, — ^haven't made a decent living for my wife 
 and little family; won't you allow my firm to 
 name a brand of cigars for you ; I'm sure they'd 
 sell like hot cakes?" "No objection, if you make 
 it a good, honest cigar." "Will you give me 
 your photograph and permit us to get out a 
 handsome lithograph to advertise the brand?" 
 "No objection, if you make it a real portrait and 
 not a daub." "Once more. Colonel, will you 
 give me a 'sentiment' to accompany the brand?" 
 "Very well, how will this do: Let us smoke in 
 this world — not in the next?" The young man 
 went on his way rejoicing. Two years after 
 he came from New York to Washington and in 
 grateful terms thanked the Colonel for his good- 
 ness. "The cigar has sold all over the country," 
 he said, "and my commissions have amounted 
 to hundreds and hundreds of dollars; in fact, 
 Colonel, you have put me on my feet and in the 
 way to comfort and success in life."
 
 110 ROBERT G. INGERSOLL 
 
 "GOING TO DENVER." 
 
 At another time, Mr. Ingersoll was travelling 
 with a party of capitalists who with him were 
 inspecting cattle ranches in New Mexico. They 
 were in a private car going to Denver. One 
 evening after dinner, while they were enjoying 
 their cigars, the conductor announced, "Gentle- 
 men, a tramp has curled himself up on the rear 
 platform of your car ; shall I stop the train and 
 put him off?" "Certainly," replied the leader 
 of the party, a man many times a millionaire, 
 "put him off, and do it without ceremony." 
 "You will do no such thing," quickly interrupted 
 Colonel Ingersoll ; "Let him alone, he is doing no 
 harm." "But he's an intruder, stealing a ride, 
 and how do you know he isn't a *road-agent,' 
 with accomplices further on?" "No matter, 
 let him be; I will go and speak to him." Ac- 
 companied by the writer, he went to the rear 
 platform. The man at once begged pardon for 
 his intrusion, said that necessity alone impelled 
 him, that he was out of work and out of money, 
 that he was a good mechanic and wanted to go 
 to Denver, where he hoped to get employment. 
 "Don't apologize or explain any further; I 
 understand;" said the Colonel. "I have been
 
 AN INTIMATE VIEW HI 
 
 hard up myself. Are you hungry." "Very." 
 "Come with me;" and calling to the cook he 
 said: "Give this man all he wants to eat," and 
 turning to his astonished guest, "When you're 
 through eating here's a good smoke for you," 
 handing him a perfecto. "And here's a little 
 boost for you when you get to Denver," draw- 
 ing from his pocket a ten dollar greenback. 
 "Never mind," — noticing a look of hesitation, — 
 "it's all right, good luck, and don't go out on 
 the platform again; sit on this camp-stool till 
 you reach Denver." Returning, he quietly re- 
 sumed his seat with the party. "Well," asked 
 the capitalist, "how about your hobo guest; have 
 you invited him to keep us company the rest 
 of the way?" "Yes; to Denver." "I am sur- 
 prised at you. Colonel; here you are, a distin- 
 guished lawyer, — a railroad lawyer, at that, — 
 not only winking at, but actually aiding and 
 abetting a gross violation of the law! You 
 have a great big heart, I know, and a head to 
 match, but I think this time you have let your 
 heart run away with your head." "If all our 
 heads and hearts were only half as big as your 
 pocket-book, we might all be wealthier men," 
 was the Colonel's quiet retort.
 
 112 ROBERT G. INGERSOLL 
 
 CONSCIENTIOUS. 
 
 He believed in rendering a just and ample 
 reward for all labor performed. He could not 
 bear to profit by the ill-paid toil or the dire 
 necessities of others. He was not satisfied to 
 pay only the cheap market price for goods re- 
 quired. He went back of the merchant to the 
 worker, and inquired into the original cost of 
 many things. In his purchases of garments 
 for personal wear, I have known him to go to 
 the maker direct, wherever he could, and pay 
 an enhanced price — what he believed to be near- 
 est an equivalent for the article bought. He 
 said he did not want "something for nothing," 
 he wanted to pa^ his way. He could not and 
 would not accept a money favor, even from a 
 friend, without making an adequate return. 
 For years he was complimented by railroad offi- 
 cials with **free passes" over their lines. He 
 never solicited one of them. They were freely 
 offered. He did not, out of politeness, refuse 
 them, but he did not use them. He could not 
 travel as a "dead-head." He has shown me 
 bunches of these passes, some of them beauti- 
 fully executed, and in one instance handsomely 
 engraved on a small sterling-silver plate. He
 
 AN INTIMATE VIEW 118 
 
 kept them as souvenirs, so he called them — re- 
 minders that at one time he was himself presi- 
 dent of a railroad in Illinois. No remunera- 
 tion in any shape would he ever accept from 
 any corporation or interest, or from any in- 
 dividual, except in acknowledgment of service 
 rendered. 
 
 MISTAKES AND SLANDERS. 
 
 It is not the purpose of this sketch to enter 
 at large upon a definition or defense of Mr. In- 
 gersoll's religious or non-religious views. He 
 alone could rightly define and defend them. In 
 the popular mind, however, there is such ignor- 
 ance, misinformation and error, and such mis- 
 representation both of his person and his teach- 
 ings, that true statements, taken from his own 
 lips, and an intimate view of his character and 
 actions gained by a long acquaintance and ex- 
 ceptional opportunities, qualify the writer to 
 make a record entitled to more than passing 
 attention. As for his views on nearly all ques- 
 tions of human interest, they are am.ply set forth 
 in his writings and sayings, and happily extant 
 and available in the authorized form before re- 
 ferred to. They speak for themselves, and in 
 no feeble or faltering voice. He was ready to
 
 114 ROBERT G. INGERSOLL 
 
 stand by them, confident of the enlightened 
 judgment of the fair and free. 
 
 His character, motives, and meanings have, 
 however, been sadly mistaken, perverted and 
 maligned. The slanders of ignorance and the 
 lies of malice have too often aimed at him their 
 poisoned shafts. To show how he received and 
 repelled these attacks, and if possible to furnish 
 an antidote for their virulence, is but an act of 
 loyalty to truth, to justice, and to right, no less 
 than to personal friendship and affection. 
 
 ABUSE vs. ARGUMENT. 
 
 Mr. Ingersoll knew well enough that a 
 strong man using his strength to combat pre- 
 vailing error — no matter on what subject — 
 would make enemies. This he expected in his 
 own case from the ignorant, prejudiced and un- 
 fair; but that professed champions of justice, 
 love, and truth, divinely called to speak, should 
 welcome every hateful rumor and give it cred- 
 ence and circulation from pulpit, press and plat- 
 form, sometimes amazed and grieved him, but 
 oftener excited his pity and compassion. "And 
 yet, after all," he would say, "it is but natural 
 that those who expect their God to damn me 
 hereafter, should want to do a little of it here
 
 AN INTIMATE VIEW 115 
 
 themselves ! Why do they not answer my argu- 
 ments? Why do not my orthodox foes fight 
 fairly?" 
 
 "I want to say, that if there is anything I 
 like in the world it is fairness. And one reason 
 I like it so well is that I have had so little of it. 
 I can say, if I wish, extremely mean and hate- 
 ful things. I have read a great many religious 
 papers and discussions and think that I now 
 know all the infamous words in our language. 
 I know how to account for every noble action 
 by a mean and wretched motive; and that, in 
 my judgment, embraces nearly the entire sci- 
 ence of modern theology." 
 
 "It does seem to me that if I were a Chris- 
 tian, and really thought my fellow-man was 
 going down to the bottomless pit, that he was 
 going to misery and agony forever — it does seem 
 to me that I would try to save him. It does seem 
 to me, that instead of having my mouth filled 
 with epithets and invectives ; instead of drawing 
 the lips of malice back from the teeth of hatred, 
 it seems to me that my eyes would be filled with 
 tears. It seems to me that I would do what 
 little I could to reclaim him. I would talk to 
 him, and of him, in kindness. I would put the 
 arms of affection about him. I would not speak
 
 116 ROBERT G. INGERSOLL 
 
 of him as though he were a wild beast. I would 
 not speak to him as though he were a brute. I 
 would think of him as a man, as a man liable 
 to eternal torture among the damned, and my 
 heart would be filled with sympathy, not hatred 
 — my eyes with tears, not scorn." 
 
 "It is a mystery to me why the editors of 
 religious papers are so malicious, why they en- 
 deavor to answer argument with calumny. Is 
 it because they feel the scepter slowly slipping 
 from their hands? Is it the result of impotent 
 rage? Is it because there is being w^ritten upon 
 every orthodox brain a certificate of intellectual 
 inferiority?'* 
 
 THE CLERGY. 
 
 1/ 
 
 It is only natural to expect that with this 
 
 personal experience he could have no very high 
 
 regard for the clergy. He could not see why a 
 
 stripling just fledged from a theological nest 
 
 should be called "Father" and "Reverend." He 
 
 knew how ministers were made. It used to be, 
 
 more than it is now, considered an honor to 
 
 have at least one member of a family "called" 
 
 to preach the gospel. Usually, he said, it was 
 
 the one with a delicate constitution, the petted 
 
 and spoiled child, of indolent habits, averse to
 
 AN INTIMATE VIEW 117 
 
 manly and athletic sports, who was picked out 
 by the parents and friends as the candidate for 
 "holy orders." He did not see why such a one 
 should be "divinely chosen" and "set apart," 
 while the latent lawyer, or doctor, or business 
 man, or mechanic, should be left without a "call." 
 To him, the choice was simply a very human 
 one and often a great mistake. He thought a 
 good workman at the bench better than a poor 
 parson in the pulpit. "Schoolhouses," he said, 
 "are the real temples, and teachers are the true 
 priests." 
 
 He knew only few, very few, clergymen 
 whom he could call his friends, and instanced 
 Henry Ward Beecher, Dr, Henry M. Field, and 
 the Rev. Alexander Clark as among the number. 
 They were fair-minded and kindly-spoken, and 
 respected his personality even if they could not 
 accept his teachings. 
 
 As above stated, he knew how most of those 
 in the ministerial "profession" came to be there 
 — ^how they were "ordained" by the "laying on 
 of hands," and "anointed" with "holy oil," the 
 "divine petroleum," as he termed it, of ecclesias- 
 tical ceremony. One verified instance came to 
 his knowledge, that he thought might well 
 enough illustrate the motive of many who ac-
 
 118 ROBERT G. INGERSOLL 
 
 cept the call to preach. It was that of a young 
 man in an Eastern university, whose reputation 
 for honor and decency was so tainted that he was 
 "black-balled" when seeking entrance into the 
 Greek fraternity of his fellow-students. In a 
 class meeting before graduation the boys were 
 invited to tell what calling they intended to pur- 
 sue in life. This young man said: *'Boys, I'm 
 going to be a minister!" They hooted him. 
 "All right ; you wait and see. Short cut ! First 
 you get a call to some little country church. 
 Then, if you have the gift of gab, you are called 
 to the city, get a big church, marry the richest 
 girl in the congregation, and you're fixed for 
 life !" He actually made good this forecast, in 
 every particular. 
 
 HIS EARLY LIFE MALIGNED. 
 
 Mr. Ingersoll's orthodox enemies spread the 
 report that his early life was dissolute and de- 
 praved. It was untrue. He was genial, jolly, 
 good-natured and companionable — liked by all 
 who knew him. Those competent to judge, who 
 knew him well from boyhood to manhood, — 
 mayors, city and county officials, friends, 
 neighbors and prominent citizens — over their 
 own signatures attested by their sworn affida-
 
 AN INTIMATE VIEW 119 
 
 vits, united in indignant denial of the cheap 
 calumny. 
 
 Another report industriously circulated and 
 designed to belittle his honor as a soldier and 
 his courage as a man and officer, was that he 
 tamely surrendered his regiment of cavalry to 
 the confederate General Forrest, and was taken 
 prisoner in a cowardly attempt to escape. It 
 is maliciously false. His force was surrounded 
 by greatly superior numbers, and after a gaflant 
 but futile resistance, like the wise and humane 
 officer he was, he decided to yield rather than 
 cause useless bloodshed. For this act he was to 
 be commended, not condemned. It is enough to 
 say that in all after years the surviving veter- 
 ans of his command loved, honored and almost 
 idolized him. 
 
 Continuing the campaign of miserable lies, a 
 newspaper paragraph v/idely circulated, stated 
 that Mr. Ingersoll's daughters were "maudlin 
 drunkards!" A clergyman from his pulpit re- 
 peated the infamous story. When asked to re- 
 tract, he took refuge, like a moral coward, be- 
 hind the newspaper scrap and made no manly 
 apology. He should have been indicted ! Right 
 on the heels of this unholy slander, and quite 
 naturally following it, came the statement in a
 
 120 ROBERT G. INGERSOLL 
 
 religious journal that Mr. Ingersoll's daughters 
 had repudiated their father's views on religion, 
 and joined a Presbyterian church! The truth 
 is that with the exception that as a compliment 
 to Mr. Beecher, whom their father esteemed, 
 they once went to hear him preach, they never 
 entered the door of an orthodox church, and 
 said that they never wished to. 
 
 tf 
 
 HIS "ONLY SON. 
 
 Mr. Ingersoll seldom took the trouble to an- 
 swer these stories. Once in a while at the urg- 
 ing of friends, he would reply to an accusation, 
 especially if there was an element of humor in 
 the situation. A prominent religious weekly pub- 
 lished the following news for the enlightenment 
 of its readers : "We are told, on good authority, 
 that Colonel Ingersoll's only son was so addicted 
 to cheap novel reading that his mind became 
 affected thereby; that he was quietly removed 
 to a private asylum, where he shortly afterward 
 died." To an inquirer who sent him the clip- 
 ping he wrote: "1. My only son was not a great 
 novel reader; 2. He did not go insane ; 3. He was 
 not sent to an asylum ; 4. He did not die; and 5. 
 I never had a son !" 
 
 "The truth is," he said, "that arguments can-
 
 AN INTIMATE VIEW 121 
 
 not be answered by personal abuse ; there is no 
 logic in slander, and falsehood, in the long run, 
 defeats itself." 
 
 "There was a time when a falsehood, ful- 
 minated from the pulpit, smote like a sword; 
 but the supply having greatly exceeded the de- 
 mand, clerical misrepresentation has at last be- 
 come almost an innocent amusement. Remem- 
 bering that only a few years ago men, women, 
 and even children, were imprisoned, tortured 
 and burned, for having expressed in an exceed- 
 ingly mild and gentle way, the ideas entertained 
 by me, I congratulate myself that calumny is 
 now the pulpit's last resort." 
 
 THE "OBSCENE LITERATURE" CHARGE. 
 
 A more serious and vital attack on his moral 
 character came from an influential clergyman 
 in Brooklyn, who from his pulpit made the as- 
 sertion that Colonel Ingersoll was in favor of 
 the circulation of "obscene literature, that cor- 
 rupted the morals and debauched the minds of 
 the youth of the land." He cited in evidence 
 the untrue report that the Colonel once signed 
 a petition to Congress favoring such circulation. 
 It was not so. The preacher did not give the 
 facts. He was not honest. If he did not know
 
 122 ROBERT G. INGERSOLL 
 
 the circumstances of the case, and the intention 
 of the signers, he still was culpable, for the facts 
 were all of record and of easy access; but the 
 preacher intended to leave, and did leave, the 
 impression that Mr. Ingersoll advocated the cir- 
 culation through the mails of impure and licen- 
 tious literature. Of course, the very thought of 
 such advocacy was foreign and abhorrent to 
 him. 
 
 Briefly stated, all there was to the hateful 
 charge is this : When certain self-appointed cen- 
 sors — religious fanatics — presumed to decide 
 that liberal or infidel literature was "obscene," 
 and on that pretext endeavored to have it ex- 
 cluded, together with his own writings, from 
 the United States mails, the Colonel denounced 
 such an attempt as an infringement on religious 
 liberty. He fought for the inviolability and free- 
 dom of the mails from pharisaical intrusion, 
 and challenged the moral or legal right of Chris- 
 tian inquisitors to commit the Government to 
 an Act declaring Infidel, or Agnostic, or Atheis- 
 tic literature ''obscene." If any further word 
 were needed to show Mr. IngersolFs attitude on 
 this question, listen to this emphatic, even 
 passionate declaration: 
 
 *'I despise, I execrate, I denounce, with every
 
 V 
 
 AN INTIMATE VIEW 123 
 
 drop of my blood, any man or wofnan who would 
 engage, either directly or indirectly, in the dis- 
 semination of anything that is not absolutely 
 pure ; any man or woman who would stain with 
 lust the sweet and innocent heart of youth. 
 Such a one I despise with all my heart. One 
 of my objections to the Old Testament is that it 
 is not a fit book to be read by either old or 
 young. It contains passages that no minister in 
 the United States would read to his congrega- 
 tion for any reward whatever. There are chap- 
 ters that no gentleman would read in the pres- 
 ence of a lady. There are chapters that no fa- 
 ther would read to his child. There are narra- 
 tives utterly unfit to be told; and the time will 
 come when mankind will wonder that such a 
 book was ever called inspired." 
 
 "I was and am in favor of the destruction of 
 every immoral book in the world. I was and 
 am in favor, not only of the law against the 
 circulation of such filth, but want it executed to 
 the letter in every State of this Union." 
 
 HIS FORBEARANCE AND SYMPATHY. 
 
 Let US now see how this patient and forgiv- 
 ing mian received and endured these things. 
 He was generally silent, even under great pro-
 
 124 EGBERT G. INGERSOLL 
 
 vocation. His friends were often indignant and 
 urged reply and retaliation. He would not 
 gratify them. Only in the slanderous attack 
 upon his moral character involved in the "ob- 
 scene literature" charge, did he consent to take 
 legal action, which resulted in a "plea of 
 avoidance" by the clerical defendant; and he 
 pursued the case only far enough to reveal the 
 facts and establish his unclouded reputation. All 
 slander and abuse he endured with a calm phil- 
 osophy. He always held himself open to con- 
 viction, and there never was a man readier to 
 acknowledge an error, admit a truth, or right 
 a wrong. I have known him to do it many 
 times, and to do it gladly, gracefully, beauti- 
 fully. , 
 
 He had pity and forbearance for the weak 
 and erring. He was tender, compassionate, 
 merciful. He pleaded for the criminal, for 
 reform in the method of treating him, and urged 
 before State and National conventions the duty 
 of society toward him. He did not think that 
 all criminals were always and only irretrievably 
 bad. A convict whom he had caused to be re- 
 leased from the Joliet penitentiary was certainly 
 not incorrigible. The Colonel gave him a suit of 
 clothes and some money. In a few months a
 
 AN INTIMATE VIEW 125 
 
 fine-looking man, with the bearing of a gentle- 
 man, came to the Colonel to thank him again and 
 again, and to return the money which he said he 
 had only borrowed. 
 
 In Mr. Ingersoll's view, the object of all pun- 
 ishment should be reformation, not retaliation — 
 rescue, not revenge. Only such punishment 
 should be inflicted as the safety of society de- 
 manded. He was bitterly opposed to the whip- 
 ping-post, — believed that it degraded the whip- 
 per as well as the whipped, and disgraced the 
 State that resorted to it. As for capital punish- 
 ment, he regarded it as legal murder, pure and 
 simple, and believed that it made more crim- 
 inals than it ever dropped from the scaffold, or 
 seated in the electric chair. -^ 
 
 INTELLECTUAL HOSPITALITY. 
 
 Mr. Ingersoll emphasized the necessity of 
 free thought. Every man should do his own 
 thinking, and he should not be hindered or ham- 
 pered in the exercise of it. Not only had he the 
 right, but it was his duty as well as privilege, 
 to form honest opinions and give honest expres- 
 sion to them. He claimed this right for himself 
 and accorded it to all others. He persistently 
 upheld the right of private judgment as against
 
 126 ROBERT G. INGERSOLL 
 
 all powers, sj^stems, creeds and opinions. Only 
 by its fearless exercise, he held, could the best 
 and highest in man be developed. Claiming no 
 infallibility for himself, he was tolerant of the 
 views and opinions of others. He invited crit- 
 icism and argument, loved debate, but was not 
 disputatious or offensive — not excited or heated 
 in voice or manner, but "slow-pulsed and calm," 
 and deferential toward those who differed with 
 him. It was, indeed, a treat to argue with him. 
 He not only respected but he admired the one 
 who honestly opposed him if he could give "a 
 reason for the f aitii that was in him." 
 
 HIS AGNOSTICISM. 
 
 As before remarked, it is not the purpose of 
 the writer to enter into a discussion of Mr. 
 Ingersoll's position on religious and theological 
 questions, but simply, and in merest outline, to 
 attempt worthily to state it. He was an Agnos- 
 tic, and wanted to be recognized as such. "I 
 do not know," was his reply to many of the 
 great problems of life and destiny. "I wish I 
 did know, but will never pretend, or say, that I 
 do, when I know that I do not. I have the same 
 sources of information that others have, — all 
 they have — and I know that others do not
 
 AN INTIMATE VIEW 127 
 
 ^ know." "The clergy know that I know that 
 
 v/ they know they do not know.'V^. 
 
 This was not said in a facetious or boastful 
 way, but as expressing his sincere and earnest 
 conviction. 
 
 ^ "][do not deny. I do not know — but I do not 
 
 " "believe." I believe that the natural is supreme — 
 that from the infinite chain no link can be lost 
 or broken — that there is no supernatural power 
 that can answer prayer — no power that wor- 
 ship can persuade or change — no power that 
 cares for man. 
 
 "I believe that with infinite arms Nature 
 embraces them all — that there is no interfer- 
 ence, no chance ; that behind every event are the 
 necessary and countless causes, and that beyond 
 every event will be and must be the necessary 
 and countless effects. r-f^.^^ m/!^.,.- 
 
 ^ "Man must protect himself. He cannot de- 
 
 pend upon the supernatural, upon an imaginary 
 Father in the skies. He must protect himself by 
 finding the facts in Nature, by developing his 
 brain, to the end that he may overcome the ob- 
 structions and take advantage of the forces of 
 
 ^ Nature.
 
 ^y 
 
 128 ROBERT G. INGERSOLL 
 
 LIBERTY WITH RESPONSIBILITY. 
 
 "Thought and speech must be free. The 
 man or men who would put a chain upon the 
 brain or a padlock on the tongue are heirs of 
 the Inquisition, the enemies of society, the foes 
 of human progress." This liberty of thought 
 and speech did not with him mean license. He 
 was always careful to make this distinction and 
 to emphasize it. ''Liberty with Responsibility" 
 was his doctrine. Men must bear the conse- 
 quences. They do bear them. We reap what 
 we sow. Act and consequence are inseparable, 
 and no power, human or divine, can step between 
 to change this law." ''My liberty ends where 
 yours begins," was his constant definition of the 
 limit of freedom. 
 
 ON A FUTURE LIFE. 
 
 ■ As to a future conscious existence of the indi- 
 vidual ego after death he said: "I do not know." 
 "I never have denied the immortality of the 
 soul. I have simply been honest. I have said: 
 *I do not know.' " 
 
 "One thing I do know, and that is, that nei- 
 ther hope, nor fear, nor belief, nor denial, can
 
 AN INTIMATE VIEW 129 
 
 change the fact. It is as it is, and it will be as 
 it must be. 
 
 "We wait and hope." 
 
 "There is in death, as I believe, nothing 
 worse than sleep." 
 
 To those who asked, "Why, if there be no con- 
 scious future state, should the hope be so uni- 
 versally implanted in the human breast?" he 
 replied: "Love was the first to dream of immor- 
 tality, — not Religion, not Revelation. We love, 
 therefore we wish to live." 
 
 "The hope of immortality is the great oak 
 'round which have climbed the poisonous vines 
 of superstition. The vines have not supported 
 the oak, the oak has supported the vines. As 
 long as men live and love and die, this hope will 
 blossom in the human heart." 
 
 He has repeatedly declared : "I would not de- 
 stroy the faintest ray of human hope, but I deny 
 that we get our idea of immortality from the 
 Bible. It existed long before the time of Moses. 
 We find it symbolized through all Egypt, 
 through all India. Wherever man has lived he 
 has made another world in which to meet the 
 lost of this. 
 
 "The history of this belief we find in tombs 
 and temples wrought and carved by those who
 
 130 ROBERT G. INGERSOLL 
 
 wept and hoped. Above their dead they laid 
 the symbols of another life. 
 
 **We do not know. We do not prophesy a life 
 of pain. We leave the dead with Nature, the 
 mother of us all. Under the bow of hope, under 
 the seven-hued arch, let the dead sleep." 
 
 His attitude on this question he has put in 
 these rhythmical lines, — one of his many prose- 
 poems : 
 
 ^We do not know, we cannot say, whether 
 death is a wall or a door; the beginning or end 
 of a day; the spreading of pinions to soar, or 
 the folding forever of wings ; the rise or the set 
 of a sun, or an endless life that brings rapture 
 and love to every one." 
 
 ON THE EXISTENCE OF A GOD. 
 
 ^ On the existence of a God he was again an 
 Agnostic. In one short sentence, every word a 
 monosyllable, he has stated a whole philosophy 
 of the subject: "We go as far as we can, and the 
 rest of the way we say — God." Could it be, has 
 it ever been, put in clearer, shorter, simpler 
 form? When we have reached the limit of hu- 
 man knowledge, of human thought, "the rest of 
 ^' the way," the Infinite Beyond, the Unknown and 
 Unknowable, the Eternal Mystery, we call —
 
 ^ 
 
 AN INTIMATE VIEW 131 
 
 "God." On this vague and shadowy conception 
 as a foundation, on this human Guess, have been 
 built all the creeds and systems, doctrines and 
 dogmas, of all religions that have bound and 
 blinded, bewildered and cursed the race. For 
 himself, when he reached the limit of the known 
 he stopped, and waited for further light, refus- 
 ing to follow "blind guides leading the blind" 
 into the labyrinths of fear and superstition, of 
 faith and despair. 
 
 Of one thing he was sure : there could not be 
 a God such as the Bible describes and the ortho- 
 dox worship. There could not be a God of the 
 Jews any more than of the Gentiles, — of the 
 Egyptians, the Hindus, the Assyrians, or any 
 other of the races of men. Vishnu and Brah- 
 ma, Isis and Osiris, Jupiter and Juno, — all the 
 Gods of Grecian and Roman mythology were 
 alike the creatures of human hopes and fears, 
 ambitions and assumptions, and all equally 
 divine and worthless. He was careful, how- 
 ever, in deference to those who mistook and mis- 
 stated his ideas of God, to make this declaration : 
 "Let me say once for all, that when I speak of 
 God, I mean the being described by Moses, the 
 Jehovah of the Jews. There rpr^y be for aught I 
 know, somewhere in the unknown shoreless
 
 182 ROBERT G. INGERSOLL 
 
 vast, some being whose dreams are constella- 
 tions and within whose thought the infinite ex- 
 ists. About this being, if such an one exists, I 
 have nothing to say, for I know nothing." 
 
 There may be a God, he further held, but if 
 so, he cannot be, he is not, the infinite fiend that 
 ignorant, barbarous and savage men have cre- 
 ated and worshipped, — a God who made the 
 world, pronounced it "good," and then permitted 
 it to become bad, so bad that he had to destroy 
 it and begin over again, repeopling it, how- 
 ever, with beings whom he knew would be just as 
 wicked. He could not conceive of a good or just 
 God who would order his children to slay one 
 another; who waged wars of conquest and ex- 
 termination; tolerated slavery and polygamy; 
 commanded religious persecution; laughed at 
 the calamity of his enemies and mocked at their 
 fears; a God who slaughtered old men and wo- 
 men, young men and maidens, innocent babes 
 at their mothers* breasts, and tortured even 
 dumb cattle for the sins of their owners ; who in 
 his wrath sent fire and sword, pestilence and 
 famine, lightnings and tempests, earthquakes 
 and volcanoes, snakes and vermin, upon his 
 chosen people and his enemies, to make them fear 
 and love him ! Such a conception of deity was
 
 AN INTIMATE VIEW 133 
 
 to him simply monstrous. To his mind it was 
 but the deification of all the weaknesses and 
 passions of men — their anger, jealousy, cruelty, 
 hatred and revenge,— a being invested with in- 
 finite power and wisdom to carry out his will; 
 and to crown all, and more infamous than all, 
 a God who at the last would punish any of his 
 erring creatures with consuming fire and be 
 himself "the keeper of an eternal penitentiary!" 
 He labored all his life and with all his powers to 
 free mankind from the thraldom of such a con- 
 ception of a Supreme Being. He used to say: 
 "From the aspersions of the pulpit, from the 
 slanders of the church, I seek to rescue the repu- 
 tation of the Deity." "It has been said, *An 
 honest man is the noblest work of God.' I say, 
 "An honest God is the noblest work of Man!" 
 
 RELIGIONS DECAY AND DIE. 
 
 Mr. Ingersoll believed, from the history of 
 all ages past, that religions, like individuals and 
 nations, have their periods of youth and ma- 
 turity, decay and death; and he recalls for us 
 this history in the eloquent passage; from his 
 lecture on "The Gods:" 
 
 "In that vast cemetery called the past, are 
 most of the religions of men, and there, too, are
 
 134 ROBERT G. INGERSOLL 
 
 nearly all their gods. The sacred temples of 
 India were ruins long ago. Over column and 
 cornice, over the painted and pictured v^alls, 
 cling and creep the trailing vines. Brahma, the 
 golden, with four heads and four arms ; Vishnu, 
 the somber, the punisher of the wicked, with his 
 three eyes, his crescent, and his necklace of 
 skulls; Siva, the destroyer, red with seas of 
 blood; Kali, the goddess; Draupadi, the white- 
 armed, and Chrishna, the Christ, all passed 
 away and left the thrones of heaven desolate. 
 Along the banks of the sacred Nile, Isis no longer 
 wandering weeps, searching for the dead Osiris. 
 The shadow of Typhon's scowl falls no more 
 upon the waves. The sun rises as of yore, and 
 his golden beams still smite the lips of Memnon, 
 but Memnon is as voiceless as the Sphinx. The 
 sacred fanes are lost in desert sands ; the dusty 
 mummies are still waiting for the resurrection 
 promised by their priests, and the old beliefs, 
 wrought in curiously sculptured stone, sleep in 
 the mystery of a language lost and dead. Odin, 
 the author of life and soul, Vili and Ve, and 
 the mighty giant Ymir, strode long ago from the 
 icy halls of the North ; and Thor, with iron glove 
 and glittering hammer, dashes mountains to the 
 earth no more. Broken are the circles and
 
 AN INTIMATE VIEW 135 
 
 cromlechs of the ancient Druids ; fallen upon Hie 
 summits of the hills, and covered with the cen- 
 turies' moss, are the sacred cairns. The divine 
 fires of Persia and of the Aztecs have died out 
 in the ashes of the past, and there is none to re- 
 kindle, and none to feed the holy flames. The 
 harp of Orpheus is still; the drained cup of Bac- 
 chus has been thrown aside ; Venus lies dead in 
 stone, and her white bosom heaves no more with 
 love. The streams still murmur, but no naiads 
 bathe ; the trees still wave, but in the forest aisles 
 no dryads dance. The gods have flown from 
 high Olympus. Not even the beautiful women 
 can lure them back, and Dan^e lies unnoticed, 
 naked to the stars. Hushed forever are the 
 thunders of Sinai; lost are the voices of the 
 prophets, and the land once flowing with milk 
 and honey, is but a desert waste. One by one, 
 the myths have faded from the clouds; one by 
 one, the phantom host has disappeared, and one 
 by one, facts, truths and realities have taken 
 their places. The supernatural has almost gone, 
 but the natural remains. The gods have fled, 
 but man is here. 
 
 AS TO THE BIBLE. 
 
 It is hardly necessary to add, that with the
 
 136 ROBERT G. INGERSOLL 
 
 views already expressed, Mr. Ingersoll could not 
 believe the Bible to be the "inspired word of 
 God." He regarded it as simply a human book 
 — a very human book, — a history more or less 
 fragmentary of the Jewish nation and people. 
 As such it was the product of the times when 
 its different parts were written. It reflects, 
 naturally, the faults and follies, the weaknesses 
 and errors, the customs and habits and opinions 
 of its writers and of the people for whom they 
 wrote. It contains, along with its traditions 
 and religious teachings, many wise and moral 
 maxims and exhortations appealing to the 
 higher and nobler in man. With all its admitted 
 beauties and excellencies, however, there is so 
 much that is trivial and false and contradictory 
 and impossible, that its claim to divine inspira- 
 tion seems to many to be an absurdity. To Mr. 
 IngersolFs mind all the earmarks show its 
 human origin. Its history and chronology, its 
 astronomy and geology, its science and phil- 
 osophy, its biology, anthropology, theology and 
 demonology — all its "ologies" — are ignorant, 
 crude and impossible. Its myths and miracles, 
 childish traditions and superstitions, its immoral 
 and anti-natural precepts and examples, show 
 absolutely its purely human origin. He thought
 
 AN INTIIvIATE VIEW 137 
 
 and said that, in his judgment, Adam was not a 
 perfect gentleman, according to the nineteenth 
 century standard; and that Moses and Aaron; 
 Joshua and Jephtha ; Abraham, Isaac and Jacob; 
 David and Saul and Solomon; Jonah, Samson, 
 Jeremiah and Elisha, with other "worthies'* of 
 the Old Testament, were "a sorry lot,'* most of 
 whom, if living to-day, would probably be in the 
 penitentiary. 
 
 Besides, he said, there are many bibles and 
 bibles, as there are many religions, — sacred 
 scriptures of other races and peoples — some of 
 them of a civilization superior to and an antiq- 
 uity greater than the Jewish ; to say nothing of 
 the many differing manuscripts and transla- 
 tions, — "books" lost that have not been found, 
 "books" left in that should have been left out, 
 and that were admitted or excluded into or from 
 the "sacred canon" by the "votes" of human 
 councils, often by narrow majorities and after 
 heated and angry discussions — together with 
 the many interpolations, anachronisms and con- 
 tradictions that mark these sacred books, — all 
 these testify to their very natural earthly 
 origin.
 
 138 ROBERT G. INGERSOLL 
 
 MY BIBLE. 
 
 "For thousands of years men have been writ- 
 ing the real Bible, and it is being written from 
 day to day, and it will never be finished while 
 man has life. All the facts that we know, all 
 the truly recorded events, all the discoveries and 
 inventions, all the wonderful machines whose 
 wheels and levers seem to think, all the poems, 
 crystals from the brain, flowers from the heart, 
 all the songs of love and joy, of smiles and tears, 
 the great dramas of Imagination's world, the 
 wondrous paintings, miracles of form and color, 
 of light and shade, the marvellous marbles that 
 seem to live and breathe, the secrets told by rock 
 and star, by dust and flower, by rain and snow, 
 by frost and flame, by winding stream and des- 
 ert sand, by mountain range and billowed sea. 
 
 "All the wisdom that lengthens and ennobles 
 life — all that avoids or cures disease, or conquers 
 pain — all just and perfect laws and rules that 
 guide and shape our lives, all thoughts that feed 
 the flames of love, the music that transfigures, 
 enraptures and enthralls, the victories of heart 
 and brain, the miracles that hands have 
 wrought, the deft and cunning hands of those 
 who worked for wife and child, the histories of 
 noble deeds, of brave and useful men, of faith-
 
 AN INTIMATE VIEW 139 
 
 ful loving wives, of quenchless mother-love, of 
 conflicts for the right, of sufferings for the truth, 
 of all the best that all the men and women of the 
 world have said, and thought and done through 
 all the years, — these treasures of the heart and 
 brain — these are the Sacred Scriptures of the 
 human race."
 
 140 ROBERT G. INGERSOLL 
 
 VIII. 
 ON ETERNAL PUNISHMENT. 
 
 We come now to a statement, feebly inade- 
 quate, of Mr. Ingersoll's position on this ques- 
 tion. It was to him the culminating point of 
 all his objectives. It mattered little to him, com- 
 paratively, what people believed on abstruse and 
 disputed questions of theology, science, or phil- 
 osophy. But on the vital question of the des- 
 tiny of the human soul he stood firm as a rock. 
 Here he would admit no compromise, make no 
 concession. In this, he was no longer an Agnos- 
 tic, — he knew. Everlasting punishment of the 
 "unrepenting sinner," of the "wicked," of any- 
 body, was to his mind and heart an unspeakable 
 horror — a frightful insanity. This doctrine it 
 was that first opened his eyes to the falseness of 
 Christian theology, and separated him forever 
 from all confidence in, and sympathy with its 
 teachings, and made him one of its most im- 
 placable foes. This dogma he despised and 
 execrated. He denounced it as a "doctrine, the 
 infamy of which no language is sufficient to 
 express." 
 
 He said that, "While the Old Testament
 
 AN INTIMATE VIEW 141 
 
 threatens men, women and children with disease, 
 famine, war, pestilence and death, there are no 
 threatenings of punishment beyond this life. 
 The doctrine of eternal punishment is a dogma 
 of the New Testament. This doctrine, the most 
 cruel, the most infamous, is taught, if taught at 
 all, in the Bible — in the New Testament. One 
 cannot imagine what the human heart has suf- 
 fered by reason of the frightful doctrine of eter- 
 nal damnation. It is a doctrine so abhorrent to 
 every drop of my blood, so infinitely cruel, that 
 it is impossible for me to respect either the head 
 or heart of any huiman being who teaches or 
 fears it. This doctrine necessarily subverts all 
 ideas of justice. To inflict infinite punishment 
 for finite crimes, or rather for crimes com- 
 mitted by finite beings, is a proposition so mon- 
 strous that I am astonished it ever found lodg- 
 ment in the brain of man. Whoever says that 
 we can be happy in heaven while those we loved 
 on earth are suffering infinite torments in eter- 
 nal fire, defames and calumniates the human 
 heart." 
 
 And who can doubt that among the foremost 
 factors in chasing this black shadow from the 
 earth has been the gentle, loving, brave and 
 fearless Ingersoll.
 
 142 ROBERT G. INGERSOLL 
 
 TRUE CONSOLATION. 
 
 His teachings were a consolation to many a 
 sorrowing heart. Many a heavy burden has by 
 them been lifted from timid and troubled souls. 
 In San Francisco, his cousin Mrs. Sarah B. 
 Cooper, the philanthropist, brought to his atten- 
 tion the case of a devoutly pious friend, a widow, 
 whose only boy had been suddenly taken from 
 her side. He was a good and loving son, the 
 idol of her heart, the pride and prop of her life, 
 but he was not a Christian, and she feared for 
 his eternal fate, — felt that heaven would be no 
 heaven to her without her boy. Her grief was 
 inconsolable. The "consolations" of the gos- 
 pel failed to satisfy her heart, or dispel her fears. 
 The visits of her pastor brought no comfort, left 
 behind no peace. Christian friends came in 
 vain to her relief. Appealed to by his cousin, 
 Colonel Ingersoll wrote a letter to this sorrow- 
 ing heart. He urged her not to fear, saying : 
 
 "Mrs. Cooper has told me the sad story of 
 your almost infinite sorrow. I am not foolish 
 enough to suppose that I can say or do anything 
 to lessen your great grief, your anguish for his 
 loss; but may be I can say something to drive
 
 AN INTIMATE VIEW 143 
 
 from your poor heart the fiend of fear — fear for 
 him. 
 
 "If there is a God, let us believe that he is 
 good, and if he is good, the good have nothing to 
 fear. I have been told that your son was kind 
 and generous; that he was filled with charity 
 and sympathy. Now, we know that in this 
 v/orld like begets like, kindness produces kind- 
 ness, and all goodness bears the fruit of joy. 
 Belief is nothing — deeds are everything; and if 
 your son was kind he will naturally find kind- 
 ness wherever he may be. You would not inflict 
 endless pain upon your worst enemy. Is God 
 less merciful than you? You could not bear to 
 see a viper suffer forever. Is it possible that 
 God will doom a kind and generous boy to ever- 
 lasting pain? Nothing can be more monstrously 
 absurd and cruel. 
 
 "The truth is, that no human being know^s 
 anything of what is beyond the grave. If 
 nothing is known, then it is not honest for any- 
 one to pretend that he does know. If nothing 
 is known, then we can hope only for the good. 
 If there be a God your boy is no more in his 
 power now than he was before his death — no 
 more than you are at the present moment. Why 
 should we fear God more after death than be-
 
 144 ROBERT G. INGERSOLL 
 
 fore? Does the feeling of God toward his child- 
 ren change the moment they die? While we are 
 alive they say God loves us; when will he cease 
 to love us? True love never changes. I beg 
 of you to throw aw^ay all fear. Take counsel 
 of your own heart. If God exists, your heart is 
 the best revelation of him, and your heart could 
 never send your boy to endless pain. After all, 
 no one knows. The ministers know nothing. 
 All the churches in the world know no more 
 on this subject than the ants on the ant-hills. 
 Creeds are good for nothing except to break the 
 hearts of the loving. Have courage. Under the 
 seven-hued arch of hope let your boy sleep. I do 
 not pretend to know, but I do know that others 
 do not know. Listen to your heart, believe 
 what it says, and wait with patience and with- 
 out fear for what the future has for all. If we 
 can get no comfort from what people know, let 
 us avoid being driven to despair by what they 
 do not know. 
 
 "I wish I could say something that would put 
 a star in your night of grief — a little flower in 
 your lonely path — and if an unbeliever has such 
 a wish, surely an infinitely good being never 
 made a soul to be the food of pain through count- 
 less years.'*
 
 AN INTIMATE VIEW 145 
 
 To this letter came the prompt reply: 
 "Dear Colonel Ingersoll : I found your let- 
 ter inclosed with one from Mrs. Cooper at my 
 door on the way to this hotel to see a friend. 
 I broke the seal here, and through blinding tears 
 — letting it fall from my hands between each 
 sentence to sob my heart out — read it. The 
 first peace I have known, real peace, since the 
 terrible blow, has come to me now. While I 
 will not doubt the existence of a God, I feel that 
 I can rest my grief -stricken heart on his good- 
 ness and mercy; and you have helped me to do 
 this. Why, you have helped me to believe in an 
 all-merciful and loving creator, who has gath- 
 ered (I will try to believe) my poor little boy — 
 my kind, large-hearted child — into his tender 
 and sheltering arms. There is a genuine ring 
 in your words that lifts me up. 
 
 "Your belief, so clear and logical, so filled 
 with common sense, corresponds, so far back as 
 I can remember, with my own matter-of-fact 
 ideas ; and I was the child of good and praying 
 parents, and my great wondering eyes, ques- 
 tioning silently when they talked to me, my 
 strange ways, while I tried to be good, caused 
 them often great anxiety and many a pang — 
 God forgive me.
 
 146 ROBERT G. INGERSOLL 
 
 "I am writing, while people are talking 
 about me, just a line to thank you from the bot- 
 tom of my heart for the comfort you have given 
 me to-day. You great, good man; I see the 
 traces of your tears all over your letter, and I 
 could clasp your hand and bless you for this com- 
 fort you have given my poor heart." 
 
 ON SPECIAL PROVIDENCE. 
 
 Colonel Ingersoll did not believe in a special 
 Providence caring for each human soul, answer- 
 ing prayer and extending his almighty arm in 
 rescue of the innocent and helpless and in re- 
 ward of the faithful and righteous; nor did he 
 believe that this Providence ever heard or 
 answered the most horrible prayer ever offer- 
 ed by human lips or written by human hand — 
 David's 109th imprecatory Psalm. 
 
 A minister called on him once to say: "Col- 
 onel, I understand you do not believe in a special 
 providence." "I do not." "Well, I want to 
 prove it to you beyond all question, in my own 
 case. Some years ago I engaged passage on a 
 steamer, to go abroad. Before she sailed, I had 
 a fear, a presentiment, or feeling — call it what 
 you will — that something would happen to that 
 steamer. I got so worked up over it, that I took
 
 I 
 AN INTIMATE VIEW 147 
 
 it to the Lord in earnest prayer. As the result, 
 I gave up my stateroom. Colonel, that steamer 
 never reached port. She went down, and every 
 one of the four hundred souls on board sank to 
 a watery grave. Will you tell me that that was 
 not a divine interposition in my behalf, in an- 
 swer to my prayer ? Is it not proof positive that 
 God cared for me in a special, personal way?" 
 "But, my dear sir," was the Colonel's reply, 
 "what do you suppose the families and friends 
 of the four hundred drowned thought of your 
 special providence ? Do you think that God cared 
 only for your one little soul and forgot to warn 
 all the rest? It won't do. Besides, do you feel 
 comfortable at the thought that having such a 
 warning from the Lord you did not, day and 
 night, beseech the captain of that ship to post- 
 pone his sailing, at least till you could get word 
 from heaven that it was safe to go?" The min- 
 ister did not reply. "Now, let me tell you my 
 case," continued the Colonel. "Providence cared 
 for me a little while ago in a striking way, 
 though you may not believe it. A thxmder-bolt 
 struck the Young Men's Christian Association's 
 building which adjoined my own oiRce in Wash- 
 ington, and I escaped ! !f that shaft was aimed
 
 148 ROBERT G. INGERSOLL 
 
 at me, I certainly think your providence was a 
 very poor marksman !" 
 
 ON MIRACLES. 
 
 When the subject of miracles was broached, 
 he could hardly repress a smile, — the belief in 
 them seemed to him so hopelessly unworthy of 
 an intelligent, thinking mind. He could find 
 no warrant in Nature, or experience, for such 
 a belief. He held that the belief had its founda- 
 tion in the ignorance, credulity and fear of the 
 superstitious savage. That these lowest ele- 
 ments in man should be played upon by design- 
 ing priests to extort reverence for their persons 
 and their office and obedience to their authority, 
 — to say nothing of the revenue extracted from 
 the poor and toiling millions, — seemed to him a 
 monstrous crime. He could not argue the ques- 
 tion seriously, it was to him altogether outside 
 the pale of rational thought. Belief in miracles 
 has always been the mother of superstition, and 
 he held the church responsible for upholding and 
 perpetuating it. 
 
 ''Believers in miracles," he said, "should not 
 endeavor to explain them. There is but 
 one way to explain anything, and that is to 
 account for it by natural agencies. The moment
 
 AN INTIMATE VIEW 149 
 
 you explain a miracle, it disappears. You 
 should depend not upon explanation, but upon 
 assertion. You should not be driven from the 
 field because the miracle is shown to be unrea- 
 sonable. You should reply that all miracles are 
 unreasonable. Neither should you be in the 
 least disheartened if it be shown to be impossible. 
 The possible is not miraculous. You should take 
 the ground that if miracles were reasonable, and 
 possible, there would be no reward paid for be- 
 lieving them. The Christian has the goodness 
 to believe, while the sinner asks for evidence. It 
 is enough for God to work miracles, without 
 being called upon to substantiate them for the 
 benefit of unbelievers." 
 
 The efforts of otherwise intelligent men, the 
 so-called or miscalled Christian scientists, to 
 reconcile the miracles of the Old and New Testa- 
 ments with the facts and laws of Nature were to 
 Mr. Ingersoll simply amusing. "We must re- 
 member," he said, "that the priests of one re- 
 ligion never credit the miracles of another re- 
 ligion. Is this because priests instinctively 
 know priests? Now, when a Christian tells a 
 Buddhist some of the miracles of the Old and 
 New Testaments, the Buddhist smiles. When the 
 Buddhist tells a Christian the miracles per-
 
 150 ROBERT G. INGERSOLL 
 
 formed by the Buddha, the Christian laughs." 
 Continuing, he said in substance: the truth 
 is, that in common belief we call that "miracu- 
 lous" which is simply mysterious or wonderful. 
 We speak of the "miracle" of sand and star, of 
 life and growth, of decay and death, but they 
 are only the immutable and uniform operations 
 of the laws of Nature. To suspend these laws, 
 even for a moment, would result in confusion, 
 wreck and universal doom. According to the 
 account, General Joshua commanded that "the 
 sun and moon stop in the heavens in order that 
 General Joshua might have more time to mur- 
 der ; the shadow on a dial goes back ten degrees 
 to convince a petty king of a barbarous people 
 that he is not going to die of a boil." We now 
 know that if these "miracles" had been wrought, 
 the world would have been instantly plunged in- 
 to the night of chaos and ruin. Nature's laws 
 are uniform and inexorably persistent in their 
 operation. They obey no master, suffer no in- 
 terference. Like causes always and every- 
 where produce like effects, and no mandate from 
 earth or sky, no "miracle," however attested, can 
 change this law. 
 
 Miracles are simply the product of the un- 
 enlightened human imagination, stimulated and
 
 AN INTn^iATE VIEW 151 
 
 pei%^erted by the mistaken zeal of sincerity, or 
 by the designing craft of religious hypocrisy or 
 fanaticism. No miracles are wrought to-day. 
 
 On the Sunday question he was equally em- 
 phatic. He did not believe that that day, or any 
 day, could be "holy" or "sacred" in the theologi- 
 cal sense. That day was holy to him in which 
 some kind thought was expressed, or loving deed 
 done for others. "How," he asked, "can 
 a space of time be holy? You might as well 
 talk of a pious multiplication table, a moral tri- 
 angle, or a virtuous vacuum." He regarded 
 the day as a good civil institution, as a day of 
 rest from unnecessary toil, and if sacred for 
 anything, to be devoted to individual, family 
 and social joys. 
 
 His views on slavery and polygamy; on in- 
 ' spiration, the trinity, the divinity of Christ, — 
 . whom he regarded as a good, kind and gentle 
 man, a reformer and an infidel in his day; on 
 the incarnation; on the fall of man, the atone- 
 ment, the resurrection of the body and other 
 doctrines of orthodox Christianity, are too gen- 
 erally known to need rehearsal here. He reject- 
 ed them all, and in his works has given mani- 
 fold reasons therefor.
 
 152 ROBERT G. INGERSOLL 
 
 ON NATURE AND MAN. 
 
 He believed that Nature, or the Universe, is 
 all there is ; that it is the only God. In this he 
 was pantheistic, yet not professedly a Pantheist. 
 nor was he a Deist. He said : 
 
 "Let us be honest with ourselves. In the 
 presence of countless mysteries; standing be- 
 neath the boundless heaven sown thick with con- 
 stellations; knowing that each grain of sand, 
 each leaf, each blade of grass, asks of every 
 mind the answerless question ; knowing that the 
 simplest thing defies solution; feeling that we 
 deal with the superficial and the relative, and 
 that we are forever eluded by the real, the 
 absolute, — let us admit the limitations of our 
 minds, and let us have the courage and the can- 
 dor to say : We do not know." 
 
 "The Agnostic is an Atheist. The Atheist 
 is an Agnostic. The Agnostic says: "I do not 
 know, but I do not believe there is any God." 
 The Atheist says the same. The orthodox 
 Christian says he knows there is a God; but we 
 know that he does not know. He simply be- 
 lieves. He cannot know. The Atheist cannot 
 know that God does not exist." 
 t. As we have seen, he was an Agnostic, — ^he did
 
 AN INTIMATE VIEW 153 
 
 not know, nor pretend,nor profess to know. He 
 did not personify Nature as God. Nature to 
 him had no moral qualities or attributes, — nei- 
 ther loved nor hated ; held no sceptre like a king 
 dispensing favors and rewards, no power like a 
 judge inflicting penalties and pains. He be- 
 lieved that man himself is king and judge, vic- 
 tor and victim, his own master, his own slave, 
 that he reaps what he sows, gathers his own 
 harvest. 
 
 He held that Nature or the elements, the 
 Universe or God cannot be the person, with 
 "body, parts and passions," that man in his 
 ignorance and faith has created. Man in his 
 vain search for the Infinite has simply personi- 
 fied the forces of Nature and given to them quali- 
 ties and attributes in accord with his own high- 
 est and lowest conceptions. Nature, according 
 to Mr. Ingersoll, has no mental, moral, or physi- 
 cal embodiment of a human type — is not an 
 exaggerated and sublimated man, to be feared 
 and worshipped. It has no appetites, no wants, 
 and cannot therefore be entreated by prayer, 
 flattered by praise, melted by tears, or bribed by 
 offerings and sacrifices. He believed that noth- 
 ing we know can be higher or lower than the 
 natural — can be either supernatural or infra-
 
 154 ROBERT G. INGERSOLL 
 
 natural, — that there are no gods, no angels, no 
 devils, no heavens, no hells. "The Universe is 
 all there is, or was, or v^ill be. It is both sub- 
 ject and object; contemplator and contemplated; 
 creator and created; destroyer and destroyed; 
 preserver and preserved, and hath within itself 
 all causes, modes, motions, and effects." 
 
 He taught that man only could be the provi- 
 dence of man ; that if man is to be helped, man 
 must be the helper; that he will look in vain to 
 the mountains or the clouds, — that he himself 
 must be and make his own heaven, as he sadly 
 enough makes his own hell. Summing up his 
 philosophy of human life he said: "Happiness 
 is the only good. The place to be happy is here. 
 The time to be happy is now. The way to be 
 happy is to make others so." 
 
 "ICONOCLASM." 
 
 Many, by way of reproach, called him a 
 "rude Iconoclast," shattering the images wor- 
 shipped by devout souls and setting up no others 
 in their places. They cried, "You take away 
 our 'idols,' as you call them, and give us nothing 
 in return." To these he would say: 
 
 "We do not want creeds; we do not want 
 idols ; we want knowledge ; we want happiness.
 
 AN INTIMATE VIEW 155 
 
 "And yet we are told by the Church that we 
 have accomplished nothing; that we are simply 
 destroyers ; that we tear down without building 
 again. 
 
 "Is it nothing to free the mind? Is it noth- 
 ing to civilize mankind? Is it nothing to fill 
 the world with light, with discovery, with sci- 
 ence? Is it nothing to dignify man and exalt 
 the intellect? Is it nothing to grope your way 
 into the di-eary prisons, the damp and dripping 
 dungeons, the dark and silent cells of super- 
 stition, where the souls of men are chained to 
 floors of stone ; to greet them like a ray of light, 
 like the song of a bird, the murmur of a stream ; 
 to see the dull eyes open and grow slowly bright ; 
 to feel yourself grasped by the shrunken and 
 unused hands, and hear yourself thanked by a 
 strange and hollow voice? 
 
 "Is it nothing to conduct these souls gradu- 
 ally into the blessed light of day — to let them 
 see again the happy fields, the sweet, green 
 earth, and hear the everlasting music of the 
 waves? Is it nothing to make men wipe the 
 dust from their swollen knees, the tears from 
 their blanched and furrowed cheeks? Is it a 
 small thing to reave the heavens of an insatiate 
 monster and wTite upon the eternal dome, glit-
 
 156 ROBERT G. INGERSOLL 
 
 tering with stars, the grand word — Freedom? 
 
 *'Is it a small thing to quench the flames of 
 hell with the holy tears of pity — to unbind the 
 martyr from the stake — break all the chains — 
 put out the fires of civil war — stay the sword 
 of the fanatic, and tear the bloody hands of the 
 Church from the white throat of Science? 
 
 "Is it a small thing to make men truly free 
 — ^to destroy the dogmas of ignorance, prejudice 
 and power — the poisoned fables of superstition, 
 and drive from the beautiful face of the earth 
 the fiend of Fear?" 
 
 Do not be frightened, he urged ; "Fear is the 
 dungeon of the soul." "Do not be afraid to 
 doubt ; your doubts are the smartest things about 
 you." 
 
 "The destroyer of weeds and thistles is a 
 benefactor, whether he soweth grain or not. 
 I cannot, for my life, see why one should be 
 charged with tearing down and not rebuilding, 
 simply because he exposes a sham, or detects 
 a lie. I do not feel under any obligation to build 
 something in the place of a detected falsehood. 
 All I think I am under obligation to put in the 
 place of a detected lie, is the detection." 
 
 "I have not torn the good dowTi. I have only 
 endeavored to trample out the ignorant, cruel
 
 AN INTIMATE VIEW 157 
 
 ifires of hell. I do not tear away the passage: 
 'God will be merciful to the merciful/ I do not 
 destroy the promise : 'If you will forgive others, 
 God will forgive you.' 
 
 "There is no darkness but ignorance, no light 
 but intelligence," he asserted over and over 
 again. "On the ruins of ignorance the splendid 
 temple of intelligence must be reared. In the 
 place of darkness the light must be made to 
 shine." 
 
 "Some may ask, 'Are you trying to take our 
 religion away?' 
 
 "To such I answer. No. Superstition is not 
 religion. 
 
 "To love justice, to long for the right, to love 
 mercy, to pity the suffering, to assist the weak, 
 to forget wrongs and remember benefits — to 
 love the truth, to be sincere, to utter honest 
 words, to love liberty, to wage relentless war 
 against slavery in all its forms, to love wife and 
 child and friend, to make a happy home, to love 
 the beautiful in art, in nature, to cultivate the 
 mind, to be familiar with the mighty thoughts 
 that genius has expressed, the noble deeds of all 
 the world, to cultivate courage and cheerfulness, 
 to make others happy, to fill life with the splen- 
 dor of generous acts, the warmth of loving
 
 158 ROBERT G. INGERSOLL 
 
 words, to discard error, to destroy prejudice, to 
 receive new truths with gladness, to cultivate 
 hope, to see the calm beyond the storm, the dawn 
 beyond the night, to do the best that can be done 
 and then to be resigned — this is the religion of 
 reason, the creed of science. This satisfies the 
 brain and heart."
 
 AN INTIMATE VIEW 159 
 
 IX. 
 
 HIS VIEW OF CHRIST. 
 
 What did Mr. Ingersoll think of Christ? 
 That he was simply a man, — not "God incar- 
 nate," as theologians express it. He was not, 
 could not have been, miraculously conceived. 
 He was the son, the first-born, of Jewish par- 
 ents, naturally begotten. He learned and fol- 
 lowed his father's trade and lived in the home 
 with the rest of the family. We know nothing 
 of his boyhood aside from apocryphal tales told 
 of wonders he wrought for the amusement and 
 amazement of his playmates, and the gospel 
 story of confounding the doctors in the temple 
 by his precocious wisdom. His mother, as a 
 woman, and the wife of Joseph, must have be- 
 lieved in her heart that Christ was the child of 
 their union, and not the offspring of Jehovah. 
 Once when they feared their boy was lost, she 
 said on finding him, "Thy father and I" — thy 
 parents — "have sought thee, sorrowing." 
 
 The writer of Matthew's gospel believed, 
 with other Jews, that the Christ of prophesy and 
 of their hopes was to be an earthly king, who 
 should "sit on the throne of his father David."
 
 160 ROBERT G. INGERSOLL 
 
 He therefore traces the ancestry of Joseph, "as 
 was supposed," not of Mary, to show that the 
 blood of David was in Joseph's veins. Christ 
 was a human being — could have been none 
 other. The claim of divinity was not made for 
 him by the early Church until years after his 
 death, for the epistles and gospels were not 
 known or accepted as authority until at least a 
 century-and-a-half later. 
 
 In his review of the four gospels, Mr. Inger- 
 soll shows that there was not agreement. This 
 want of harmony was apparent, more perhaps 
 in the omission of important events and doc- 
 trines than in the interpolations and errors of 
 translation. He points out especially that the 
 most vital message of all, the Atonement, is not 
 definitely set forth by either of the three evan- 
 gelists. Only John tells us that we must "be- 
 lieve" and be "born again" in order to be saved. 
 The other three had not heard of it, or did not 
 regard salvation by faith as an essential teach- 
 ing of their Master, else they would, all of them, 
 have said so. Instead, they exalted and empha- 
 sized the moral precepts, the practice of good- 
 ness, mercy, purity of heart, forgiveness, char- 
 ity — the doctrines preached by Christ in his 
 "Sermon on the Mount." This sermon was to
 
 AN INTIMATE VIEW 161 
 
 be for his hearers their guide and chart through 
 life and the key to open for them the portals of 
 heaven. 
 
 Of course he discarded all miracles, myths, 
 legends and false records of the words said to 
 have been spoken and deeds said to have been 
 done by Christ. He regarded these as the source 
 and cause of the beliefs of his misguided and de- 
 luded, even though sincere and devout, followers. 
 He could understand and account for their 
 credulity, and their reverential homage, and did 
 not wonder at it. Did not they see this kins- 
 man of theirs, their neighbor and countryman, 
 "going about doing good?" Was he not healing 
 their sick, causing their lame to leap, their 
 sightless eyes to see, their silent lips to utter 
 speech, their closed ears to hear melodious 
 sounds, and marvel of marvels ! their dead to be 
 raised from "cold obstruction" to warm and 
 throbbing life? And all for them ! Could they 
 be other than grateful for his kindness, his sym- 
 pathy and compassion? They looked upon him 
 as a wise and powerful friend, who took their 
 part against rich and heartless oppressors, and 
 were overwhelmed with pity and anguish at his 
 cruel and pathetic death. And for their sakes ! 
 No wonder that they worshipped him !
 
 162 ROBERT G. TNCERSOLL 
 
 The early Church, growing in numbers and 
 power, taking advantage of this loving adora- 
 tion, added the forces of mystery and command 
 to complete its mastery of souls. Thus did 
 Christianity as a system begin, and thus for 
 centuries did it continue to be, like all other reli- 
 gions since the world has been. We have found 
 many Christs in many races, many lands. We 
 have seen many systems of religion appear and 
 disappear — arrive, flourish, decay and die. 
 These all had their miraculous births, supersti- 
 tious beliefs, sacred books, cunning priests, 
 formal ceremonies, and often cruel and inhuman 
 rites — with millions of devoted followers to at- 
 test to their divine mission and authority. 
 
 Mr. Ingersoll believed, in all sincerity, that 
 Christ was a good man, not an imposter, not a 
 hypocrite, but one of the best of men that ever 
 "touched this bank and shoal of Time." He 
 was kind, teuder and compassionate. He loved 
 little children and gathered them in his arms. 
 In his ministry he was intensely earnest, self- 
 denying and indefatigable. He preached and 
 labored for no salary, — gave his gospel freely, 
 "without money and without price," and was so 
 poor that "he had not where to lay his head," 
 and lived on the hospitality and alms of his
 
 AN INTIMATE VIEW 163 
 
 followers. Very like, Mr. Ingersoll thought, 
 the itinerant preachers of the early Methodist 
 Church who were more or less warmly wel- 
 comed in the homes of their flocks. This re- 
 minded him of the pious woman who entertained 
 several ministers of her denomination attend- 
 ing quarterly conference. On the first morning 
 of their stay she asked her husband for an extra 
 supply of money to do the marketing, saying, — 
 "You know them religiouses eats orful!" 
 Apropos of this question of Christian hospi- 
 tality, so often abused, a minister once visited a 
 "brother" living in another city. He prolonged 
 his stay beyond a reasonable time. Hints that 
 his early departure would not greatly grieve the 
 family, were not taken. At last, provoked, the 
 goodman of the house invoked the help of the 
 Lord. At family worship one morning he 
 prayed: "When our brother leaves us today, go 
 with him, bless him in basket and in store," — 
 and so on. The prayer was quickly answered, 
 and preacher and carpet-bag disappeared before 
 the hour for luncheon had arrived. Another 
 case was that of a Christian worker who late at 
 night, and without notice, brought himself and 
 his two boys to a "brother's" home, saying 
 frankly that it was too expensive for him to stop
 
 164 ROBERT G. INGERSOLL 
 
 at the hotel ! Mr. Ingersoll did not mean to con- 
 demn or disparage the hospitality of the early- 
 Christian disciples, but he thought the modern 
 practice of ''pious billeting," as he termed it, 
 somewhat overdone. 
 
 In the story of Mary and Martha — probably 
 apocryphal — Mr. Ingersoll thought that Christ 
 as a guest was hardly fair to Martha — not as 
 appreciative as he might have been of her "care- 
 ful" concern for his bodily comfort. His ex- 
 travagant praise for Mary should have been 
 equally shared by both sisters. He seemed to 
 have been more pleased with the loving atten- 
 tions of Mary, who sat at his feet anointing 
 them with oil, bathing them with tears, and 
 wiping them with her flowing tresses, than he 
 was with the "poorer part" that Martha "chose" 
 in entertaining him. Martha stood in the 
 kitchen, as we might say in modern parlance, 
 cooking, baking and then serving the food, and 
 really loving him, while Mary stayed in the par- 
 lor kneeling and adoring. As one has put it: 
 *'Maiy wept, Martha swept." Mr. IngersolFs 
 choice was for Martha as the better hostess. 
 
 Christ was serene, serious, sad and solemn, 
 as befitted his great mission. "Jesus w^ept." 
 He could not be jovial, gay, or flippant, light-
 
 AN INTIMATE VIEW 165 
 
 hearted or humorous. We do not know that he 
 ever enjoyed a joke, or indulged in a hearty 
 laugh. He attended a wedding feast, and may 
 have been merry over the wine he made out of 
 water, but we do not know. We do know that 
 he was terribly severe in his denunciations of 
 wrong and of wrong-doers, and sometimes dis- 
 played impatience and temper when displeased, 
 and administered unmxerited and unjust rebuke. 
 On one occasion, being hungry, he approached a 
 fig tree expecting fruit, although "the time of 
 figs was not yet," and finding ^'nothing but 
 leaves" he "cursed" the innocent tree, saying, 
 "Let no fruit grow on thee henceforward for- 
 ever," and instantly the poor thing "withered 
 away." Mr. Ingersoll coulc' not reconcile this 
 transaction with goodness or greatness, and 
 thought that a "miracle of blessing" rather than 
 of cursing should then and there have been per- 
 formed. He thought and hoped that the story, 
 like others, was an interpolation. 
 
 The simple truth, as believed by Mr. Inger- 
 soll, is that Christ was an oriental Prophet, a re- 
 ligious Reformer, an Evangelist, a Protestant 
 against the evils and abuses, the false teachings 
 and formal rites of the Jewish sjmagogue and 
 altar. He was an Infidel and Heretic in the
 
 166 ROBERT G. INGERSOLL 
 
 eyes of the orthodox of his day, and was put to 
 a cruel and shameful death on the cross because 
 he dared to oppose and expose the errors of the 
 church of his fathers. In this he was fearless, 
 courageous, heroic, and truly one of the greatest 
 of the "glorious army of Martyrs." 
 
 He must have been attractive and magnetic 
 in his person, speech and manner, and capable of 
 strong and enduring attachments — in short, an 
 altogether loving and lovable man. These fine 
 traits in him Mr. Ingersoll fully understood and 
 appreciated. He had no aversion, no hatred, 
 only praise, for the Peasant of Palestine. He 
 was not an enemy, but a friend of the human 
 Christ, notwithstanding the calumny and slan- 
 der of orthodox priests and teachers. He said : 
 
 "And let me say here, once for all, that for 
 the man Christ I have infinite respect. Let me 
 say, once for all, that the place where man has 
 died for man is holy ground. And let me say, 
 once for all, that to that great and serene man 
 I gladly pay the tribute of my admiration and 
 my tears. He was an infidel in his time. He 
 was regarded as a blasphemer, and his life was 
 destroyed by hypocrites, who have in all ages, 
 done what they could to trample freedom and 
 manhood out of the human mind. Had I lived
 
 AN INTIMATE VIEW 167 
 
 at that time I would have been his friend, and 
 should he come again he will not find a better 
 friend than I will be. 
 
 "That is for the man. For the theological 
 creation I have a different feeling. If he was, 
 in fact, God, he knew there was no such thing 
 as death. He knew that what we called death 
 was but the eternal opening of the golden gates 
 of everlasting joy; and it took no heroism to 
 face a death that was eternal life. 
 
 "But when a man, when a poor boy sixteen 
 years of age, goes upon the field of battle to keep 
 his flag in heaven, not knowing but death ends 
 all ; not knowing but that when the shadows 
 creep over him, the darkness will be eternal, 
 there is heroism. For the man who, in the dark- 
 ness, said: "My God, why hast thou forsaken 
 me?" — for that man I have nothing but respect, 
 admiration, and love. Back of the theological 
 shreds, rags, and patches, hiding the real Christ, 
 I see a genuine man." 
 
 While thus recognizing and applauding the 
 high moral character of Christ, and his many 
 virtues. Colonel Ingersoll could not see from the 
 record that he was "intellectually at the sum- 
 mit" of the race. He certainly had but a nar- 
 row field of observation and a limited experience.
 
 168 ROBERT G. INGERSOLL 
 
 He lived but a few years, and in a very small 
 and poor country, and his "world" was confined 
 to Palestine and the lands bordering on the 
 Mediterranean sea. He had not heard of Amer- 
 ica, and knew nothing of the great islands and 
 continents peopled with millions of his fellow 
 creatures, that lay beyond the scope of his nar- 
 row vision. He had no true conception of the 
 size and shape of the earth, knew little of geo- 
 graphy, geology, ethnology, or cosmogony, and 
 still less of astronomy. He was ignorant of the 
 motions of the planets, of the suns, moons and 
 stars, wheeling in their orbits through the infi- 
 nite spaces. He perhaps had heard of "The 
 Wise Men" and the "Star" that heralded his 
 birth, but made no mention of it. Matthew is 
 the only evangelist who records it. He was not 
 a great philosopher. Most of his philosophy 
 was provincial, puerile, crude and impossible. 
 He did not value worldly wisdom — his "King- 
 dom was not of this world." He was not an in- 
 ventor, voyager, or discoverer of new facts and 
 forces in nature. He practised none of the fine 
 arts, — ^was not a painter, sculptor or musician, 
 although he was poetic, dramatic and highly im- 
 aginative, — traits common to the Oriental tem- 
 perament. He was not a historian — wrote noth-
 
 ""h 
 
 AN INTIMATE VIEW 169 
 
 ing — left not a line or word, not even a signa- 
 ture of his name. He said nothing about educa- 
 tion, the rights of man, popular sovereignty or 
 statesmanship. He did not encourage industry, 
 thrift and economy, or the habit of saving for the 
 future, telling his followers to "take no thought 
 for the morrow,'^ that it was useless to lay up 
 treasures on earth for the end of all things was 
 at hand. He was the enemy of the rich and 
 prosperous, for in his allegory he consigned 
 Dives to Hades, **not because he was bad, but be- 
 cause he was rich," and comforted Lazarus in 
 Abraham's bosom, "not because he was good, 
 but because he was poor." He did not grow 
 eloquent over the sacredness of home, or the 
 blessedness of maternity. He never married. 
 The Church that followed him and bore his name 
 regarded and still regards "the priest as better 
 than a father, the nun holier than a mother." 
 
 His was supremely a heavenly mission. He 
 subordinated the material to the spiritual, the 
 joy of living here to the promise of greater joy 
 hereafter. He believed the end was near, and 
 said, "This generation shall not pass away," that 
 those who heard him "should not taste of death," 
 till all that he had prophesied had been fulfilled. 
 The things he did not say, but might have said,
 
 170 ROBERT G. INGERSOLL 
 
 if he had been the Divine Teacher knowing all 
 things, past, present and future, seemed more 
 important to Mr. Ingersoll than the things he did 
 say. 
 
 *'If Christ was in fact God, he knew all the 
 future. Before him like a panorama moved the 
 history yet to be. He knew how his w^ords 
 would be interpreted. He knew what crimes, 
 what horrors, what infamies, would be com- 
 mitted in his name. He knew that the hungiy 
 flames of persecution would climb around the 
 limbs of countless martyrs. He knew that thou- 
 sands and thousands of brave men and women 
 would languish in dungeons in darkness, filled 
 with pain. He knew that the church would in- 
 vent and use instruments of torture; that his 
 followers would appeal to whip and fagot, to 
 chain and rack. He saw what creeds would 
 spring like poisonous fungi from every text. He 
 saw the ignorant sects waging war against each 
 other. He saw thousands of men, under the 
 orders of priests, building prisons for their fel- 
 low-men. He saw thousands of scaffolds drip- 
 ping with the best and bravest blood. He saw 
 his followers using the instruments of pain. He 
 heard the groans — saw the faces white with 
 agony. He heard the shrieks and sobs and cries
 
 AN INTIMATE VIEW 171 
 
 of all the moaning, martyred multitudes. He 
 knew that commentaries would be written on his 
 words with swords, to be read by the light of 
 fagots. He knew that the Inquisition would be 
 born of the teachings attributed to him. 
 
 **He saw the interpolations and falsehoods 
 that hypocrisy would write and tell. He saw all 
 wars that would be waged, and knew that above 
 these fields of death, these dungeons, these rack- 
 ings, these burnings, these executions, for a 
 thousand years would float the dripping banner 
 of the cross. 
 
 "He knew that hypocrisy would be robed and 
 crowned — that cruelty and credulity would rule 
 the world ; knew that liberty would perish from 
 the earth; knew that popes and kings in his 
 name would enslave the souls and bodies of men ; 
 knew that they would persecute and destroy the 
 discoverers, thinkers and inventors; knew that 
 his church would extinguish reason^s holy light 
 and leave the world without a star. 
 
 "He saw his disciples extinguishing the eyes 
 of men, flaying them alive, cutting out their 
 tongues, searching for all the nerves of pain. 
 
 "He knew that in his name his followers 
 would trade in human flesh ; that cradles would 
 be robbed and women*s breasts unbabed for gold.
 
 172 ROBERT G. INGERSOLL 
 
 "And yet he died with voiceless lips. 
 
 **Why did he fail to speak? Why did he not 
 tell his disciples, and through them the world: 
 *You shall not burn, imprison and torture in my 
 name. You shall not persecute your fellow- 
 men.' 
 
 "Why did he not plainly say: *I am the Son 
 of God,' or, 1 am God?' Why did he not ex- 
 plain the Trinity? Why did he not tell the 
 mode of baptism that was pleasing to him? Why 
 did he not write a creed? Why did he not break 
 the chains of slaves? Why did he not say that 
 the Old Testament was or was not the inspired 
 word of God? Why did he not write the New 
 Testament himself? Why did he leave his words 
 to ignorance, hypocrisy and chance? Why did 
 he not say something positive, definite and satis- 
 factory about another world? Why did he not 
 turn the tear-stained hope of heaven into the 
 glad knowledge of another life? Why did he 
 not tell us something of the rights of man, of 
 the liberty of hand and brain? 
 
 "Why did he go dumbly to his death, leaving 
 the world to misery and to doubt? 
 
 "I will tell you why. He was a man, and 
 did not know."
 
 AN INTIMATE VIEW 173 
 
 ADMISSIONS AND EXCEPTIONS. 
 
 Notwithstanding Mr. IngersolFs pronounced 
 views of the character and teachings of the man 
 Christ, and his emphatic denials and denuncia- 
 tions of orthodox theology, he repeatedly ex- 
 pressed, both in his public utterances and pri- 
 vate conversations, these thoughts : 
 
 "I admit that there are many good and 
 beautiful passages in the Old and New Testa- 
 ments; that from the lips of Christ dropped 
 many pearls of kindness, — of love. Every verse 
 that is true and tender I treasure in my heart. 
 Every thought behind which is the tear of pity 
 I appreciate and love. But I cannot accept it 
 all. Many utterances attributed to Christ shock 
 my brain and heart. They are absurd and 
 cruel. 
 
 "Take from the New Testament the infinite 
 savagery, the shoreless malevolence of eternal 
 pain, the absurdity of salvation by faith, the ig- 
 norant belief in the existence of devils, the im- 
 morality and cruelty of the Atonement, the doc- 
 trine of non-resistance that denies to virtue the 
 right of self-defense, and how glorious it would 
 be to know that the remainder is true! Com- 
 pared with this knowledge, how everything else
 
 174 ROBERT G. INGBRSOLL 
 
 in nature would shrink and shrivel! What 
 ecstacy it would be to know that God exists, that 
 he is our father and that he loves and cares for 
 the children of men ! To know that all the paths 
 that human beings travel, turn and wind as they 
 may, lead to the gates of stainless peace? How 
 the heart would thrill and throb to know that 
 Christ was the conqueror of Death ; that at his 
 grave the all-devouring monster was baffled and 
 beaten forever ; that from that moment the tomb 
 became the door that opens on eternal life ! To 
 know this would change all sorrow into glad- 
 ness. Poverty, failure, disaster, defeat, power, 
 place and wealth would become meaningless 
 sounds. To take your babe upon your knee and 
 say: *Mine and mine forever!' What joy! To 
 clasp the woman you love in your arms and to 
 know that she is yours and forever — yours 
 though suns darken and constellations vanish! 
 This is enough : To know that the loved and dead 
 are not lost ; that they still live and love and wait 
 for you. To know that Christ dispelled the 
 darkness of death and filled the grave with eter- 
 nal light. To know this would be all that the 
 heart could bear. Beyond this joy cannot go. 
 Beyond this there is no place for hope." 
 
 In the foregoing statement of Mr. IngersolFs
 
 AN INTIMATE VIEW 175 
 
 view of Christ and his teachings, the writer has 
 given only a few extracts and attempted only 
 the merest outline, the most meager and superfi- 
 cial survey, of the subject. He feels that he has 
 only touched the hem of a wonderfully woven 
 intellectual garment, reached but the boundary 
 line and not explored the interior, the heights 
 and widths and depths of Mr. Ingersoll's uni- 
 versal genius. Who would penetrate further 
 must be referred to his published works in their 
 complete "Dresden" offering. 
 
 While never professing or pretending to be a 
 "poet" in the accepted meaning of the term, Mr. 
 Ingersoll was yet highly poetic in temperament, 
 thought and expression. What he modestly 
 called, or his admirers called, "Prose Poems," 
 abundantly show this. All his writings and 
 sayings display it. Sometimes he would invoke 
 the muse and jot down on bits of paper his vivid 
 imagery in metrical numbers. Many of these 
 scraps, most of them very beautiful, were found 
 in his literary remains. He thought it worth 
 while, in summing up his views, to put them in 
 verse, and so he gave us this comprehensive 
 rhythmical summary, called his creed, or his
 
 176 ROBERT G. INGERSOLL 
 
 X. 
 
 DECLARATION OF THE FREE. 
 
 "We have no falsehoods to defend — 
 
 We want the facts ; 
 Our force, our thought, v;e do not spend 
 
 In vain attacks. 
 And we will never meanly try 
 To save some fair and pleasing lie. 
 
 "The simple truth is what we ask, 
 
 Not the ideal; 
 We've set ourselves the noble task 
 
 To find the real. 
 If all there is is naught but dross, 
 We want to know and bear our loss. 
 
 "We will not willingly be fooled, 
 
 By fables nursed; 
 Our hearts, by earnest thought, are schooled 
 
 To bear the worst; 
 And we can stand erect and dare 
 All things, all facts that really are. 
 
 "We have no God to serve or fear, 
 No hell to shun, 
 No devil with malicious leer. 
 When life is done
 
 AN INTIMATE VIEW 177 
 
 An endless sleep may close our eyes, 
 A sleep with neither dreams nor sighs. 
 
 "We have no master on the land — 
 
 No king in air — 
 Without a miracle we stand, 
 
 Without a prayer, 
 Without a fear of coming night; 
 We seek the truth, we love the light. 
 
 **We do not bow before a guess, 
 
 A vague unknown; 
 A senseless force we do not bless 
 
 In solemn tone. 
 When evil comes we do not curse, 
 Or thank because it is no worse. 
 
 "When cyclones rend — ^when lightning blights, 
 
 'Tis naught but fate; 
 There is no God of wrath who smites 
 
 In heartless hate. 
 Behind the things that injure man 
 There is no purpose, thought, or plan. 
 
 "We waste no time in useless dread. 
 
 In trembling fear; 
 The present lives, the past is dead, 
 
 And we are here. 
 All welcome guests at life's great feast — 
 We need no help from ghost or priest.
 
 178 ROBERT G. INGERSOLL 
 
 "Our life is joyous, jocund, free — 
 
 Not one a slave 
 Who bends in fear the trembling knee, 
 
 And seeks to save 
 A coward soul from future pain ; 
 Not one will cringe or crawl for gain. 
 
 "The jeweled cup of love we drain. 
 
 And friendship's wine 
 Now swiftly flows in every vein 
 
 With waimth divine. 
 And so we love and hope and dream 
 That in death's sky there is a gleam. 
 
 "We walk according to our light; 
 
 Pursue the path 
 That leads to honor's stainless height, 
 
 Careless of wrath 
 Or curse of God, or priestly spite, 
 Longing to know and do the right. 
 
 "We love our fellow man, our kind, 
 
 Wife, child, and friend. 
 To phantoms we are deaf and blind. 
 
 But we extend 
 The helping hand to the distressed; 
 By lifting others we are blessed. 
 
 "Love's sacred flame, within the heart's 
 And friendship's glow;
 
 AN INTIMATE VIEW 179 
 
 While all the miracles of art 
 
 Their wealth bestow 
 Upon the thrilled and joyous brain, 
 And present raptures banish pain. 
 
 "We love no phantoms of the skies, 
 
 But living- flesh, 
 With passion's soft and soulful eyes, 
 
 Lips warm and fresh. 
 And cheeks with health's red flag unfurled, 
 The breathing angels of this world. 
 
 "The hands that help are better far 
 
 Than lips that pray. 
 Love is the ever gleaming star 
 
 That leads the way, 
 That shines, not on vague worlds of bliss. 
 But on a paradise in this. 
 
 "We do not pray, or weep, or wail; 
 We have no dread, 
 No fear to pass beyond the veil 
 
 That hides the dead. 
 And yet we question, di^am, and guess. 
 But knowledge we do not possess. 
 
 **We ask, yet nothing seems to know; 
 
 We cry in vain. 
 There is no 'master of the show* 
 Who will explain.
 
 180 ROBERT G. INGERSOLL 
 
 Or from the future tear the mask; 
 And yet we dream, and still we ask: 
 
 "Is there beyond the silent night 
 
 An endless day? 
 Is death a door that leads to light? 
 
 We cannot say. 
 The tongueless secret locked in fate 
 We do not know. — ^We hope and wait."
 
 AN INTIMATE VIEW 181 
 
 XI. 
 
 HIS PERSONALITY. 
 
 Mr. Ingersoll was physically a handsome 
 man. His form was large and well proportion- 
 ed, his carriage erect and firm. His manners 
 were unaffected, easy and natural, gracious and 
 engaging. Whether in motion or at rest he had 
 the air and poise that denote the man of mark. 
 He was stout and muscular — ^weighing some- 
 times as much as two hundred and thirty 
 pounds, which he thought was perhaps a little 
 excessive for his height of five feet ten and a half 
 inches. His shoulders were broad and strong, 
 well suited to support the splendid head they 
 carried. His every feature was most facile in 
 expression, — all his thoughts and feelings 
 seemed reflected there. So open, frank and un- 
 concealing was his countenance^ he could not 
 without an effort hide from view a single passion 
 or emotion, and even his thoughts sometimes 
 revealed themselves to close observers. When 
 lighted with the smile that played so often round 
 his mobile mouth, his presence was illuminated 
 as with sunshine. There never was a more 
 glowing personality. His entrance into any
 
 182 ROBERT G. INGERSOLL 
 
 social circle was like a sun-burst, — he radiated 
 life and light and joy. In truth, none could long 
 be with him, and come to know him well, but 
 felt that here he saw a "combination and a form, 
 indeed, where every god did seem to set his seal 
 to give the world assurance of a man." 
 
 UNSUSPICIOUS. 
 
 He was not suspicious. He used to say that 
 Suspicion was the blackest imp in the pit. He 
 was simple, direct, guileless and unsuspecting 
 as a child, and was often imposed upon on this 
 unarmored side of his nature. Designing men 
 too often found in him an easy prey, — not al- 
 ways or so much, perhaps, because he did not 
 sometimes detect their duplicity as that he did 
 not wish harshly to judge and tax a man with 
 falseness to his face. He preferred himself to 
 suffer rather than to cause suffering to others. 
 He preferred to pity more than punish. He 
 could not cherish anger, gave no harbor to 
 revenge. He was considerate, forgiving, com- 
 passionate. 
 
 Even when he knew that favors scattered by 
 him would never be returned, he kept on shower- 
 ing them; that pledges made would not be re- 
 deemed, that monies loaned would never be re-
 
 AN INTIMATE VIEW 183 
 
 paid, he kept on giving. He could not bear to 
 deny a request. He would say : "Poor fellow, he 
 needed it; it is so good to get a boost when one 
 is trying to climb. I would rather lose what 
 I give than lose the desire to give. I would 
 sooner give than beg, loan than borrow, be cheat- 
 ed than cheat, be wronged than wrong another." 
 
 His time, his services and his means were 
 given to others in a lavish way. Money was to 
 him but leaves to be scattered. He rebuked his 
 wealthy friends for hoarding and said: "The 
 rich should be extravagant, for that gives work; 
 the poor economical, for thus they may one day 
 become rich.'* 
 
 He denounced the miserly spirit, the 
 passion for mere possession, indulged by too 
 many of the rich, and said: "What would you 
 think of a man who had a thousand neckties, 
 lying awake nights contriving how he might add 
 one more tie to his collection?" In his family 
 his purse belonged to all. He kept no secret 
 drawers, no locks or keys, no bolts or bars, on 
 his possessions. For them to want a thing was 
 to have it, to express a wish to fulfill it, so that 
 many a costly longing was concealed from him 
 lest he should discover and indulge it.
 
 184 ROBERT G. INGERSOLL 
 
 SOMETIMES SAD. 
 
 Although his outward mien was, as the rule, 
 cheerful and happy, he yet at times, and many 
 times, was serious and even sad. He bore the 
 burdens of others. His sympathies were so 
 deep and wide and strong, that while he "laughed 
 with those who laughed" he "wept with those 
 who wept," and often have I seen him touched to 
 tears at the tales of woe freely poured into his 
 listening ears. The sights and sounds of suf- 
 fering profoundly moved him. He could not go 
 down into the homes of the sorrowful, the 
 wretched and distressed, — it overcame him, un- 
 nerved him — ^but he sent relief by other hands, 
 and was in his quiet, unobtrusive way a large 
 and frequent almoner of the poor. His tender 
 sympathies embraced not only human kind but 
 all the world of sentient life. He was an early 
 and devoted friend of Henry Bergh, and by voice 
 and pen did valiant service in the crusade 
 against cruelty to animals. He waged war 
 against vivisection, believing that the useful 
 ends of science could be well enough attained 
 without the need of touching all the nerves of 
 pain. The discoverers of anaesthetics he en- 
 rolled among his aureoled saints.
 
 AN INTIMATE VIEW 185 
 
 AN IDEAL DOMESTIC MAN. 
 
 He had hosts of friends and choice acquaint- 
 ances, but few intimates to whom he opened out 
 his heart. He commanded admiration and es- 
 teem, but did not encourage undue familiarity. 
 His manner was always cordial but never effu- 
 sive or obtrusive. He was a social but not a 
 society man, so-called; not a frequent visitor, — 
 preferred his own home — ^to be the host rather 
 than the guest. His friends called on him of- 
 tener than he on them, but they always found a 
 welcome warm and hearty when they came. In 
 fact, his own home circle, with its chosen few, 
 made for him the centre and circumference of 
 his social world. He was an ideal domestic and 
 family man, loving his hearthstone and dwelling 
 beside it happy and satisfied. 
 
 This favored fireside, with its glowing com- 
 forts and true refinements, its adornments of 
 art and nature, its growing plants and flowers, 
 its books and pictures, paintings and statues, 
 its precious mementoes from friends and ad- 
 mirers in all lands, its music and its songs, its 
 conversations and readings, its games and pas- 
 times, its mirth and laughter, its all pervading 
 air and light of love and joy, — this fireside, was
 
 186 ROBERT G. INGERSOLL 
 
 as near paradise as man and woman and child 
 can make on earth. Can we wonder that they 
 who made it loved to linger by it? The hus- 
 band and father never left it for a business or 
 lecture tour without reluctance, nor returned to 
 it without delight. When away on such a tour, 
 never a day passed but he sent his love message 
 home by wire and got back the quick response, 
 "all well, love from all." 
 
 In every place he visited his admirers en- 
 treated him to become their guest, but out of 
 consideration for them he declined, and stopped 
 at the hotel instead. He did not wish to accept 
 a hospitality he could not, under the circum- 
 stances inseparable from lecturing, return. 
 When away from home and in the busy world 
 Mr. Ingersoll was not a distant, solitary and 
 unsocial being whom strangers, even, hesitated 
 to approach. It was just the other way. He 
 could scarcely walk the streets without accept- 
 ing greetings from every side. He was one of 
 the most approachable of men, the humblest as 
 well as the greatest finding equal access to his 
 attention.
 
 AN INTIMATE VIEW 187 
 
 A GENEROUS LIVER. 
 
 He loved a genial companion and could not 
 bear to be alone ; some one always walked or rode 
 with him. I never knew him to eat a solitary 
 lunch or meal. At mid-day in his office, when 
 the hour arrived, he did not leave without invit- 
 ing his secretary, or one of his clerks or students 
 or a friend — sometimes several — to go with him 
 and share his steak or chops, his terrapin or 
 game. He was a generous liver, fond of all good 
 things, and did not hesitate to join his friends 
 in a social glass. He made no apology for this 
 and wished none made for him. On this ques- 
 tion he was moderate and temperate. He be- 
 lieved that in the abuse and not the rightful use 
 of stimulants lay the harm. Liberty in this as 
 in other things he held high and paramount. 
 Without liberty to use there could be no abuse, 
 no responsibility. Excess should be restrain- 
 ed, liberty never. No one has more faithfully 
 or eloquently portrayed the frightful dangers 
 of the cup, nor any one more glowingly pictured 
 its fascinations. 
 
 As for himself, he governed well his appetite, 
 and could and did refrain from any and every 
 indulgence when his physician advised, or he
 
 188 ROBERT G. INGERSOLL 
 
 himself believed, his health required it. Even 
 his loved cigar he laid aside, or its use restrict- 
 ed, when he thought he would be the better for 
 it. In the effort to reduce his flesh he denied 
 himself for weeks and months all luxuries of 
 the table — confined his diet to the narrowest 
 regimen, and declined all sweets and fat-pro- 
 ducing foods with resolute firmness and appar- 
 ently the greatest ease. 
 
 A STEADFAST FRIEND. 
 
 He was a staunch and loyal friend. Those 
 honored with his confidence and favored with 
 his esteem found him true to the highest ideals^ 
 the best traditions, of friendship. To them he 
 was as true as steel, as steady as a fixed star. 
 He wanted in his friend the qualities of natural- 
 ness, frankness and openness of speech and 
 manner. To such he was a rare companion, a 
 whole-hearted, generous, noble comrade. He 
 hated deceit, indirection, sham and false preten- 
 sion. He did not like solemnity and so-called 
 dignity — thought them mostly masks for vanity 
 or hypocrisy. He knew he was superior to most 
 men, but made no boast of it. He had great 
 consideration, unbounded charity, for the faults
 
 AN INTIMATE VIEW 189 
 
 and frailties of his fellow-men, and pitied 
 oftener than blamed. 
 
 As before stated, his philosophy of human 
 conduct was expressed in his simple dictum, "he 
 does as he must.". All man needs is light; his 
 darkness is but ignorance; when his horizon 
 broadens his^'^iew will be clearer. 
 
 He wondered at the cheerful assent accorded 
 by the religious world to the musty maxims, 
 dusty dogmas, decrees and traditions of the 
 superstitious past; at the "dominion of the ceme- 
 tery" over the progressive and more enlightened 
 present; at the "thoughtless yes" so readily yield- 
 ed to the creeds of the churches, and at the syco- 
 phantic deference shown towards the persons 
 and ofRce of the priesthood, and the servile 
 obedience to its commands. He marvelled at 
 the credulity of men, the ease with which their 
 minds were swayed, their judgment warped, 
 their selfhood bartered, their freedom surrend- 
 ered, and he labored to restore to them their 
 birthright. 
 
 A MODEST MAN. 
 
 Colonel Ingersoll was an unaffectedly modest 
 man. He disliked notoriety, and avoided, so 
 far as he could, every manifestation of it. Many
 
 190 ROBERT G. INGERSOLL 
 
 requests came to him from publishers of ency- 
 clopedias and compilers of biographical volumes, 
 for a sketch of his life. He invariably declined 
 to furnish it, saying: "A life should not be writ- 
 ten until it has been lived." He discouraged 
 the calling of children after him, although hun- 
 dreds bear his name to-day. Albums without 
 number were sent to him for his autograph, and 
 a "sentiment,'* and literally thousands of re- 
 quests were made for his signature. Many of 
 these he granted out of an obliging spirit, but 
 the practice did not please him overmuch or meet 
 his full approval. 
 
 As all the world knows, he spoke his mind 
 freely, fully, without fear, without reserve. 
 What he thought and felt he said, and his mean- 
 ing was always plain ; but he was not arrogant 
 or dogmatic, only positive, in his speech. The 
 language of deference and inquiry was as often 
 on his lips as that of mere assertion. "Don't 
 you think?" or "Isn^t it so?" were frequent 
 phrases in his daily conversation and remark. 
 /He was, in truth, the mouthpiece and advo- 
 cate, the prophet and reformer, of his day and 
 generation.7
 
 AN INTIMATE VIEW 191 
 
 HIS RESPECT FOR WOMAN. 
 
 Mr. Ingersoll had a knightly reverence and 
 respect for womanhood. In the presence of wo- 
 men, and in all his relations with them, he was 
 always the courteous, affable, gallant gentle- 
 man. They, in turn, admired and esteemed him 
 greatly, — looked upon him as an ideal man. It 
 may be worthy of note in this connection to say, 
 that in all the hundreds of letters he received 
 from women, everywhere, — and it was my privi- 
 lege to read them all — I never saw one, not one, 
 that contained a suggestive or compromising 
 word of a doubtful or double meaning — an hon- 
 or to their womanhood and a compliment to his 
 manhood. He rejoiced to note the ever- widen- 
 ing avenues for the employment of women and 
 the better appreciation of their talents and capa- 
 bilities, and believed that they were entitled to 
 receive and should receive equal pay with men 
 for equal work. He keenly enjoyed the society 
 of the refined and cultivated among them, and 
 freely admitted and said that woman, the world 
 over, in all that made for the uplifting of the 
 race, was man's superior. He regarded her, 
 to use his own words, as "the true aristocrat 
 of the world."
 
 192 ROBERT G. INGERSOLL 
 
 HIS LOVE FOR CHILDREN. 
 
 It is hardly necessary to say, that with such 
 a nature as his, Mr. Ingersoll was fond of child- 
 ren. He loved to have them near him, enjoyed 
 their innocent prattle, their merry laugh, and 
 they instinctively turned to him, opening up the 
 treasures of their guileless hearts as to a great 
 and sympathizing friend. More than once have 
 I seen the tired mother on a train relieved of her 
 fretful babe, and when other passengers looked, 
 if they did not say, "stop the brat!" he, the 
 gentle man, took the child in his arms and with 
 the equal of a mother's art soothed it to peaceful 
 sleep. He pleaded for justice, patience, liberty 
 and love for childhood. He could not see 
 how a father, not to think a moment of a mother, 
 could strike a blow with hand or rod or whip to 
 smart the flesh of a helpless, tender child. To 
 him, such an act, whether done through impa- 
 tience, ungoverned passion, or from a mistaken 
 "sense of duty," was a mean and cowardly deed. 
 He believed that oftener the parent than the 
 child deserved the whip and rod. 
 
 THE LAUGH OF A CHILD. 
 
 He was indeed a worthy champion of child-
 
 AN INTIMATE VIEW 19S 
 
 ren's rights* To him their merry laughter was 
 music. Was ever a finer thing on the laugh of 
 a child put in words, than this by Robert G. 
 Ingersoll? — 
 
 "The laugh of a child will make the holiest 
 day more sacred still. Strike with hand of fire, 
 weird musician, thy harp strung with Ap- 
 ollo's golden hair; fill the vast cathedral aisles 
 with symphonies sweet and dim, deft toucher 
 of the organ keys; blow, bugler, blow, until the 
 silver notes do touch and kiss the moonlit waves, 
 and charm the lovers wandering 'mid the vine- 
 clad hills. But know, your sweetest strains are 
 discords all, compared with childhood's happy 
 laugh — the laugh that fills the eyes with light 
 and every heart with joy. rippling river of 
 laughter ! thou art the blessed boundary line be- 
 tween the beasts and men ; and every wayward 
 wave of thine doth drown some fretful fiend of 
 care. Laughter ! rose-lipped daughter of Joy, 
 there are dimples enough in thy cheeks to catch 
 and hold and glorify all the tears of grief." 
 
 DEVOTION TO HIS FAMILY. 
 
 Mr. Ingersoll's devotion to his family, so ten- 
 der, loving and gallant, was beautiful to see. 
 There surely never lived a more affectionate
 
 194 ROBERT G. INGERSOLL 
 
 brother, a truer, nobler husband, a dearer, 
 fonder father, or a more precious grandfather. 
 He was always the lover, adoring and adored. 
 He deified wife and children. The noble mother 
 was a goddess, their children cherubs, their home 
 a heaven. A holier, sweeter, happier home was 
 never built and kept beneath the stars than Rob- 
 ert Green IngersolFs. The open secret of it all 
 was Liberty and Love. There were no com- 
 mands, no threats, no penalties, no punishments. 
 Errors were corrected with caresses, carelessness 
 rebuked with kisses, faults remedied with fav- 
 ors, and accompanying these were reasonable re- 
 quests, right precepts, wise counsels, and rising 
 over all a shining, glorious example. 
 
 A friend once said to the younger daughter, 
 Mrs. Maud Ingersoll Probasco: *'Your father 
 was a great man." Out of the impulsive eager- 
 ness of her heart she exclaimed: **My father was 
 not a man, he was a god !" and this exalted feel- 
 ing was shared by all the members of his family. 
 
 "RECANTING." 
 
 A false rumor widely spread toward the close 
 of his life, and repeated with added particulars 
 since his death, is that he "recanted" as he drew 
 near the end of his career and embraced Chris-
 
 AN INTIMATE VIEW 195 
 
 tianity. It is not so. He did not weaken or 
 waver for an instant. It was just the opposite. 
 He said that the longer he lived the more con- 
 vinced and confirmed he was in the truth of his 
 teachings and the stronger became his convic- 
 tions regarding religion. He has so expressed 
 himself to me and to others many times. He 
 died as he had lived, a confident and ardent 
 Agnostic. Since his death, the attempt has been 
 made in many quarters to show that he — ^as 
 fabled of his illustrious predecessors Paine and 
 Voltaire — died cursing and blaspheming. His- 
 tory has been distorted and perverted by priestly 
 prejudice and malice, and by orthodox meanness 
 and mendacity, in their cases, and the probabil- 
 ity is that in the case of Mr. Ingersoll, unless the 
 real facts are known, and even after they are 
 known, error will continue to deny and despise 
 the truth, "world without end.'' 
 
 POST-MORTEM TALES. 
 
 As a matter of fact, the crusade of falsehood 
 and calumny has already begim. One report 
 now in circulation is, that Colonel Ingersoll 
 called for a "religious confessor,'* and that a 
 Koman Catholic priest was present at his death-
 
 196 ROBERT G. INGERSOLL 
 
 bed, and on his '^repentance'* gave him "abso- 
 lution." Unqualifiedly false ! 
 
 As another illustration of the reliance to be 
 placed on these post-mortem tales about great 
 men and their dying testimonies, let me here 
 cite a personal experience. A gentleman whom 
 I recently met in Southern California, told me 
 in all earnestness the true story, as he called it, 
 of Mr. Ingersoll's last moments. He said that 
 these moments were filled with fear and re- 
 morse ; that over and over again he expressed re- 
 gret that he had spent so much of his life in 
 opposing Christianity, and that he called on God 
 for pardon and mercy. I asked for his authority. 
 He said that both himself and wife were ac- 
 quainted with the nurse, a lady who attended the 
 Colonel during the last days of his illness, and 
 that they had the account directly from her. 
 Such testimony, he said, could not be gainsaid or 
 denied. He was astonished when he found who 
 I was and what I knew, and was silent if not 
 convinced. 
 
 The simple truth is, that no physician, no 
 priest, no minister, no nurse was present either 
 before or at his death, — none could be called, 
 nor could any have been of the slightest use, — 
 his illness was so short and the end so unex-
 
 AN INTIMATE VIEW 197 
 
 pected, so startlingly sudden. Not even the be- 
 loved members of his family could be with him, 
 so quickly and without warning did the end 
 come. Only his adored and adoring wife heard 
 his last playful word and saw his last loving 
 look. 
 
 Let me here tell briefly the real facts as they 
 were told to me by Mrs. Ingersoll, — ^facts which 
 the family subsequently made the subject of an 
 affidavit duly executed and filed for preservation 
 and reference: 
 
 It was learned after his death, that he knew, 
 or suspected he had not long to live, and that his 
 thread of life would be suddenly snapped, the 
 golden bowl be broken. It was said by one of 
 the servants of his family that he heard the 
 doctor — months before the fatal day — ask the 
 Colonel if he realized that he might die at any 
 moment, and he replied: "perfectly."
 
 198 ROBERT G. INGERSOLL 
 
 XII. 
 
 HIS LAST ILLNESS AND DEATH. 
 
 The night before his death had been a rest- 
 less one. He suffered considerably from indi- 
 gestion, but recovered sufficiently to be able to 
 join his family at breakfast in the morning. 
 After breakfast he sat in his easy chair on the 
 broad piazza enjoying the soft summer air and 
 viewing the landscape with the Hudson River 
 placidly flowing at his feet. He sat thus for 
 more than an hour, gazing, reading and quietly 
 conversing with those of his family who were 
 about him. No portent of the swiftly advancing 
 shadow appeared in either his look or manner. 
 Beginning to feel a little drowsy, he rose from 
 his chair at half -past ten o'clock, saying that he 
 felt like taking a nap up-stairs, but that he 
 would be down before luncheon and challenge 
 his son-in-law, Mr. Brown, and his brother-in- 
 law, Mr. Farrell, to a game of pool in the billiard 
 room. He retired to his own chamber, his wife 
 accompaying him. He slept naturally and 
 peacefully for nearly an hour; Mrs. Ingersoll 
 watching by his side while he slept. About a 
 quarter before noon he awoke and left his bed
 
 AN INTIMATE VIEW 199 
 
 to dress, and needing no assistance sat in his 
 chair to put on his shoes. Mrs. Farrell, his 
 sister-in-law, and Miss Sharkey, a life-long and 
 devoted member of his household, entered the 
 room. Mrs. Ingersoll said: "Do not dress, 
 papa, to go down to luncheon; l will eat here 
 with you." "Oh, no," he replied, "I don't want 
 to put you to that trouble." "How foolish, Rob- 
 ert," said Mrs. Farrell, smiling; "you know it^s 
 never a trouble to us ; you know you have often 
 eaten up-stairs with Eva." The Colonel did 
 not speak, but looked his grateful reply. Mrs. 
 Farrell and Miss Sharkey then left the room. 
 Mrs. Ingersoll, returning to her husband, said: 
 "Papa, you are not feeling well ; let me see your 
 tongue." He put it out with a smile, saying, 
 "You are always wanting to see my tongue!" 
 "Why, papa, it is coated; I must give you some 
 medicine." He looked at her with a loving gaze, 
 slowly closed his eyes, dropped his head upon 
 his breast, and without a struggle, without a 
 tremor, or the slightest sign of suffering, like 
 one falling peacefully to sleep, passed away. 
 
 This was on the 21st day of July, 1899. 
 Had he lived but three weeks longer, he would 
 have completed his sixty-sixth year. The im-
 
 20O ROBERT G. INGERSOLL 
 
 mediate cause of his death was angina pectoris, 
 a foe that for more than two years had threat- 
 ened his life. He sedulously kept the knowl- 
 edge of his real condition from his family and 
 friends lest he should unduly alarm them, and 
 went bravely on, thinking, writing, speaking 
 and doing to the very end. 
 
 The manner of his going was well. It was 
 a fitting close to such a life, a peaceful ending 
 of his day of toil. It was as he wished. He 
 always said he would prefer a sudden quench- 
 ing of the spark. If he had chosen the manner 
 of its going out, he would not have had it other- 
 wise. In their beautiful mansion on the Hud- 
 son, overlooking from its height a panorama of 
 exquisite loveliness ; in the peaceful quiet of his 
 own chamber; sitting in his accustomed easy 
 chair; his last word a smiling benediction; his 
 last look a love-flash in the answering eyes of 
 her whom he worshipped above all gods — above 
 all other beings — ^he passed into "the tongueless 
 silence of his dreamless sleep." 
 
 HIS BODY CREMATED. 
 
 His body was cremated. The quick, refin- 
 ing fires rendered back at once the uncorrupted 
 and incorruptible residue. This, too, was as
 
 AN INTIMATE VIEW 201 
 
 he wished, although he made no positive request, 
 leaving the matter entirely with his family. 
 And now his inurned ashes form the holy altar 
 of their home temple. Around this they 
 gather and worship. Here they offer the 
 oblation of undying adoration. Here they hold 
 the holiest of communions, the purest of soul 
 interchanges, the vocal dust responding to their 
 listening love in sweetest antiphones. All the 
 wealth of all the worlds would not measure for 
 them the worth of this casket that holds all that 
 was earthly of the greatest, gentlest, dearest, 
 best of souls that ever lived, — their husband, 
 father, lover, Robert Green Ingersoll. 
 
 HIS MEMORY CROWNED. 
 
 His memory will be crowned with never- 
 fading laurels. His fame will shine with ever- 
 growing lustre as the years go on. To count- 
 less thousands he will be linked with all their 
 highest and noblest ideals. When they dream 
 of true greatness, his career will inspire them. 
 When they covet the richest prizes of life, — 
 truth, candor, kindness, **honor bright," his pre- 
 cepts will guide them. When they look for an 
 example of manly virtue, knightly courage, mo-
 
 202 ROBERT G. INGERSOLL 
 
 ral exaltation, his presence will rise before them, 
 the champion of freedom, the lover of his kind, 
 the holder of a lighted torch. 
 
 BOUNDLESS. 
 
 Standing by the sea, hoping to fill the vision 
 with the boundless view, one strains the eager 
 gaze around, before, beyond, but fails to grasp 
 the complete whole. Only 'Che curving lines of 
 near or farther shore, bits of the smooth or 
 shelving beach, here and there a jutting rock, a 
 million crested waves and myriads of merry rip- 
 pling crestlets meet the sight, while the infinite 
 expanse lies far and far without, beyond the 
 reach of finite eye. So partly only can the 
 farthest reaching human ken perceive and 
 Rnow the boundless Ingersoll. 
 
 TOWERING. 
 
 At sunrise, on a lofty peak, I have seen a 
 mighty mountain cast its shadowed profile on 
 the western plain far out to the horizon's bound, 
 whence, having no farther earthward scope for 
 its projecting form, it has mounted to the sky 
 and lifted its majestic outline to the zenith, — 
 a pyramid rising from earth to heaven. So it 
 has seemed to me Mr. Ingersoll's genius, shone
 
 AN INTIMATE VIEW 203 
 
 upon by the rising sun of Truth, has filled the 
 intellectual plain and mounted to the highest 
 human heights. From such a summit he has 
 looked upon the world beneath, — seen all life, 
 known all men, scanned all facts, weighed all 
 faiths, all fancies, all philosophies, and sent his 
 message down of Love and Hope and Truth, — 
 of perfect Love that casts out Fear, of Hope 
 that maketh not ashamed, and Truth that when 
 perceived shall make man free. 
 
 PEERLESS. 
 
 When the record is made up, and truthful 
 history shall assign to each his niche of honor in 
 the Hall of Fame, it will be found that Robert G. 
 Ingersoll fills a place high up among the might- 
 iest of the race. It will surely write him first 
 of orators, — the Demosthenes of his day; prince 
 of righteous satire, — the American Voltaire; 
 Emancipator of the minds of men, — the Intel- 
 lectual Lincoln of his time ; himself "The Plumed 
 Knight" flinging down the gauntlet of enlight- 
 ened Truth to ignorant Error; piercing with 
 shining lance the armor of Superstition; un- 
 masking with trenchant blade the face of False- 
 hood, and with heavy battle axe shattering dun-
 
 204 ROBERT G. INGERSOLL 
 
 geon doors and opening wide at last the way to 
 "Liberty for Man, Woman and Child. "J 
 
 TRULY RELIGIOUS. 
 
 In a beautiful tribute by one of his grand- 
 cHldren, Eva Ingersoll-Brown — that "daugh- 
 ter's babe upon his knees," — we may read a 
 faithful record, a true echo of his own voice. In 
 a preface to "The Ingersoll Birthday Book," pub- 
 lished by The Truth Seeker Company^ this 
 "babe," while yet a maiden, wrote: 
 
 "Ingersoll was, I believe, the most profoundly 
 ethical, the most deeply spiritual, the most truly 
 religious of men. His was the only real religion, 
 — the religion of goodness, of justice and of 
 mercy, — the religion of Humanity and His whole 
 life was one heroic consecration to the further- 
 ance of his religion. I beg leave to repeat this 
 all-important fact: Ingersoll was a religious 
 man — religious in the highest and holiest, the 
 only true sense of the term, — religious in his ir- 
 repressible and matchless zeal for truth, — reli- 
 gious in his love for and trust in humanity, — re- 
 ligious in his fine, intrepid fealty to facts, to jus- 
 tice and to rectitude, — religious in his tempera- 
 ment of storm and fire, — religious in his splendid 
 scorn of wrong, in his superb capacity for wrath
 
 AN INTIMATE VIEW 205 
 
 and for rebellion, — and religious in his peerless 
 power for tenderness, for pity, and for love ; re- 
 ligious even in his fearless enmity to creed and 
 cant, to every form of futile dogma, ignorant 
 theology and childish faith — to base hypocrisy 
 that masquerades as virtue and as truth." 
 
 Quoting his own words, which we have 
 already given, but which cannot be too often 
 repeated or emphasized, she gives us this sum- 
 mary of what he believed true religion to be: 
 
 "To love justice, to long for the right, to love 
 mercy, to pity the suffering, to assist the weak, 
 to forget wrongs and remember benefits — to love 
 the truth, to be sincere, to utter honest words, 
 to love liberty, to wage relentless war against 
 slavery in all its forms, to love wife and child 
 and friend, to make a happy home, to love the 
 beautiful in art, in nature, to cultivate the mind, 
 to be familiar with the mighty thoughts that 
 genius has expressed, the noble deeds of all the 
 world, to cultivate courage and cheerfulness, to 
 make others happy, to fill life with the splendor 
 of generous deeds, the warmth of loving words, 
 to discard error, to destroy prejudice, to receive 
 new truths in gladness, to cultivate hope, to see 
 the calm beyond the storm, the dawn beyond the 
 ^'.night, to do the best that can be done and then
 
 206 ROBERT G. INGERSOLL 
 
 to be resigned — this is the religion of reason, 
 the creed of science. This satisfies the brain and 
 heart." 
 
 Following this she writes : 
 
 "A more inspiring, noble and complete 
 declaration of faith was never born of human 
 heart and brain. And, above all, be it said, to 
 the eternal glory of this transcendent man, that 
 he lived in absolute accord with these high ideals. 
 His life was one unbroken melody of thought and 
 deed, of heart and hand, of will and act, — one 
 sublime symphony of conscience and of conduct, 
 of precept and practice — one lofty consecration 
 to the service of his fellow-men." 
 
 L'ENVOI. 
 
 And now, "thou great and complete man," 
 farewell ! Wher'e'er thou art, in all the "shore- 
 less vast," it must be well with thee, for thou 
 thyself did'st well, and now hast got thy meed. 
 Believe and know, lofty soul! that loyal 
 friends remaining here still cherish thee and all 
 thy words and deeds, and fondly hope that when 
 it comes their turn to go, thou wilt with open 
 arms receive and clasp them to thy waiting 
 heart; that they and thou, with all true souls
 
 AN INTIMATE VIEW 207 
 
 that loved thee here together joined, may'st be 
 and go for aye through all the worlds! This 
 Hope sustains and blesses them, — completes, ful- 
 fills thy Joy. Again, farewell! Farewell!
 
 •xsaa ssaiaoiHd sih
 
 w 
 
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