In the crash of the cannonades and the desperate strife; And the sick men down in the hold were most of them stark and cold, And the pikes were all broken and bent, and the powder was all of it spent;
And the masts and the rigging were lying over the side; But Sir Richard cried in his English pride, “We have fought such a fight for a day and a night As may never be fought again!
We have won great glory, my men!
And a day less or more
At sea or ashore,
We die–does it matter when?
Sink me the ship, Master Gunner–sink her, split her in twain! Fall into the hands of God, not into the hands of Spain!”
A VISION OF WAR
From a Memorial Day address, with the permission of C. P. Farrell, New York, publisher and owner of the Ingersoll copyrighted books.
BY ROBERT G. INGERSOLL
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 assemblages, 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 freedom. 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 blessings of old men. Some are parting with mothers who hold them and press them to their hearts again and again and say nothing. Kisses and tears, tears and kisses–divine mingling of agony and joy! 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 in the road a hand waves–she answers 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 great cities, through the towns and across the prairies, down to the fields of glory, to do and to die for the eternal right.
A vision of the future rises:–
I see our country filled with happy homes, with firesides of content– the foremost of all the earth.
I see a world where thrones have crumbled and 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 shadow 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 outstretched palm, the miser’s heartless, stony 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 harmony 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.
SUNSET NEAR JERUSALEM
From an article in the _Century Magazine_, June, 1906, with the Permission of the Century Company and of the author.
BY CORWIN KNAPP LINSON
To our Northern eyes the intense brilliancy of the tropical and semi- tropical sky comes as a revelation. Sometimes at noon it is painfully dazzling; but the evening is a vision of prismatic light holding carnival in the air, wherein Milton’s “twilight gray” has no part. Unless the sky is held in the relentless grip of a winter storm, the Orient holds no gray in its evening tones; these are translucent and glowing from the setting of the sun until the stars appear. In Greece we are dreamers in that subtle atmosphere, and in Egypt visionaries under the spell of an ethereal loveliness where the filigree patterning of white dome and minaret and interlacing palm and feathery pepper tree leaves little wonder in the mind that the ornamentation of their architecture is so ravishing in its tracery.
Outside the walls of Jerusalem on the north there is a point on a knoll which commands the venerable city that David took for his own. From here you can watch the variable glow of color spread over the whole breadth of country, from the ground at one’s feet to the distant purple hilltops of Bethlehem. The fluid air seems to swim, as if laden with incense. The rocks underfoot are of all tones of lavender in shadow, and of tender, warm gleams in the light, casting vivid violet shadows athwart the mottled orange of the ground.
Down in the little valley just below us a tiny vineyard nestles in the half-light; the gray road trails outside; and beyond rise the walls, serene and stately, catching on their highest towers the last rays of the sun.
The pointed shaft of the German church lifts a gray-green finger tipped with rose into the ambient air. The sable dome of the Holy Sepulcher yields a little to the subtle influence, and shows a softer and more becoming purple.
All the unlovely traits and the squalor of the city are lost, so delicately tender is the mass of buildings painted against the background of distance.
It had been one of those days in March when the clouds of “the latter rains” had been blowing from the west. As the day drew near its close, the heavy mists assembled in great masses of ominous gray and blue, golden-edged against the turquoise sky. With such speed did they move that they seemed suddenly to leap from the horizon, and the vast dome of the heaven became filled with weird, flying monsters racing overhead. The violence of the wind tore the blue into fragments, so that what only a moment since was a colossal weight of cloud threatening to ingulf the universe, was now like a great host marshaled in splendid array, flying banners of crimson, whose ranks were ever changing, until they scattered in disordered flight across the face of the sky.
As the lowering sun neared the horizon, the color grew more and more vivid, until the whole heaven was aflame with a whirlwind of scarlet and gold and crimson, of violet and blue and emerald, flecked with copper and bronze and shreds of smoky clouds in shadow, a tempestuous riot of color so wild and extraordinary as to hold one spellbound.
Had not David beheld a similar sky when he wrote:–
O Lord my God, thou art very great;
Thou art clothed with honor and majesty. Who coverest thyself with light as with a garment: Who stretchest out the heavens like a curtain: Who layeth the beams of his chambers in the waters: Who maketh the clouds his chariot:
Who walketh upon the wings of the wind: Who maketh winds his messengers;
His ministers a flaming fire.
A RETURN IN TRIUMPH
From a speech before the New England Society of New York, December, 1886
BY T. DE WITT TALMAGE
I never so realized what this country was and is as on the day when I first saw some of these gentlemen of the Army and Navy. It was when at the close of the War our armies came back and marched in review before the President’s stand at Washington. I do not care whether a man was a Republican or a Democrat, a Northern man or a Southern man, if he had any emotion of nature, he could not look upon it without weeping. God knew that the day was stupendous, and He cleared the heaven of cloud and mist and chill, and sprung the blue sky as the triumphal arch for the returning warriors to pass under. From Arlington Heights the spring foliage shook out its welcome, as the hosts came over the hills, and the sparkling waters of the Potomac tossed their gold to the feet of the battalions as they came to the Long Bridge and in almost interminable line passed over. The Capitol never seemed so majestic as on that morning: snowy white, looking down upon the tides of men that came surging down, billow after billow. Passing in silence, yet I heard in every step the thunder of conflicts through which they had waded, and seemed to see dripping from their smoke-blackened flags the blood of our country’s martyrs. For the best part of two days we stood and watched the filing on of what seemed endless battalions, brigade after brigade, division after division, host after host, rank beyond rank; ever moving, ever passing; marching, marching; tramp, tramp, tramp– thousands after thousands, battery front, arms shouldered, columns solid, shoulder to shoulder, wheel to wheel, charger to charger, nostril to nostril.
Commanders on horses with their manes entwined with roses, and necks enchained with garlands, fractious at the shouts that ran along the line, increasing from the clapping of children clothed in white, standing on the steps of the Capitol, to the tumultuous vociferation of hundreds of thousands of enraptured multitudes, crying “Huzza! Huzza!” Gleaming muskets, thundering parks of artillery, rumbling pontoon wagons, ambulances from whose wheels seemed to sound out the groans of the crushed and the dying that they had carried. These men came from balmy Minnesota, those from Illinois prairies. These were often hummed to sleep by the pines of Oregon, those were New England lumbermen. Those came out of the coal-shafts of Pennsylvania. Side by side in one great cause, consecrated through fire and storm and darkness, brothers in peril, on their way home from Chancellorsville and Kenesaw Mountain and Fredericksburg, in lines that seemed infinite they passed on.
We gazed and wept and wondered, lifting up our heads to see if the end had come, but no! Looking from one end of that long avenue to the other, we saw them yet in solid column, battery front, host beyond host, wheel to wheel, charger to charger, nostril to nostril, coming as it were from under the Capitol. Forward! Forward! Their bayonets, caught in the sun, glimmered and flashed and blazed, till they seemed like one long river of silver, ever and anon changed into a river of fire. No end of the procession, no rest for the eyes. We turned our heads from the scene, unable longer to look. We felt disposed to stop our ears, but still we heard it, marching, marching; tramp, tramp, tramp. But hush,–uncover every head! Here they pass, the remnant of ten men of a full regiment. Silence! Widowhood and orphanage look on and wring their hands. But wheel into line, all ye people! North, South, East, West–all decades, all centuries, all millenniums! Forward, the whole line! Huzza! Huzza!
A RETURN IN DEFEAT
From “The New South,” with the permission of Henry W. Grady, Junior
BY HENRY W. GRADY
Dr. Talmage has drawn for you, with a master hand, the picture of your returning armies. He has told you how, in the pomp and circumstance of war, they came back to you, marching with proud and victorious tread, reading their glory in a nation’s eyes! Will you bear with me while I tell you of another army that sought its home at the close of the late war? An army that marched home in defeat and not in victory–in pathos and not in splendor, but in glory that equaled yours, and to hearts as loving as ever welcomed heroes home. Let me picture to you the footsore Confederate soldier, as, buttoning up in his faded gray jacket the parole which was to bear testimony to his children of his fidelity and faith, he turned his face southward from Appomattox in April, 1865. Think of him, as ragged, half-starved, heavy-hearted, enfeebled by want and wounds, having fought to exhaustion, he surrenders his gun, wrings the hands of his comrades in silence, and, lifting his tear-stained and pallid face for the last time to the graves that dot the old Virginia hills, pulls his gray cap over his brow and begins the slow and painful journey. What does he find?–let me ask you who went to your homes eager to find, in the welcome you had justly earned, full payment for four years’ sacrifice–what does he find when, having followed the battle-stained cross against overwhelming odds, dreading death not half so much as surrender, he reaches the home he left so prosperous and beautiful? He finds his house in ruins, his farm devastated, his slaves free, his stock killed, his barn empty, his trade destroyed, his money worthless; his social system, feudal in its magnificence, swept away; his people without law or legal status; his comrades slain, and the burdens of others heavy on his shoulders. Crushed by defeat, his very traditions gone; without money, credit, employment, material training; and besides all this, confronted with the gravest problem that ever met human intelligence–the establishing of a status for the vast body of his liberated slaves.
What does he do–this hero in gray, with a heart of gold? Does he sit down in sullenness and despair? Not for a day. Surely God, who had stripped him of his prosperity, inspired him in his adversity. As ruin was never before so overwhelming, never was restoration swifter. The soldier stepped from the trenches into the furrow; horses that had charged Federal guns marched before the plow, and the fields that ran red with human blood in April were green with the harvest in June; women reared in luxury cut up their dresses and made breeches for their husbands, and, with a patience and heroism that fit women always as a garment, gave their hands to work. There was little bitterness in all this. Cheerfulness and frankness prevailed. I want to say to General Sherman–who is considered an able man in our parts, though some people think he is kind of careless about fire–that from the ashes he left us in 1864 we have raised a brave and beautiful city; that somehow or other we have caught the sunshine in the bricks and mortar of our homes, and have builded therein not one ignoble prejudice or memory.
But in all this what have we accomplished? What is the sum of our work? We have found that in the general summary the free negro counts more than he did as a slave. We have planted the schoolhouse on the hilltop and made it free to white and black. We have sowed towns and cities in the place of theories, and put business above politics.
Above all, we know that we have achieved in these “piping times of peace” a fuller independence for the South than that which our fathers sought to win in the forum by their eloquence, or compel on the field by their swords.
EXPRESSION BY ACTION
IN OUR FOREFATHERS’ DAY
From a speech before the New England Society of New York, December, 1886
BY T. DE WITT TALMAGE
I must not introduce a new habit into these New England dinners, and confine myself to the one theme. For eighty-one years your speakers have been accustomed to make the toast announced the point from which they start, but to which they never return. So I shall not stick to my text, but only be particular to have all I say my own, and not make the mistake of a minister whose sermon was a patchwork from a variety of authors, to whom he gave no credit. There was an intoxicated wag in the audience who had read about everything, and he announced the authors as the minister went on. The clergyman gave an extract without any credit to the author, and the man in the audience cried out: “That’s Jeremy Taylor.” The speaker went on and gave an extract from another author without credit for it, and the man in the audience said: “That is John Wesley.” The minister gave an extract from another without credit for it, and the man in the audience said: “That is George Whitefield.” When the minister lost his patience and cried out, “Shut up, you old fool!” the man in the audience replied: “That is your own.”
Well, what about this Forefathers’ Day? In Brooklyn they say the Landing of the Pilgrims was December the 21st; in New York you say it was December the 22d. You are both right. Not through the specious and artful reasoning you have sometimes indulged in, but by a little historical incident that seems to have escaped your attention. You see, the Forefathers landed in the morning of December the 21st, but about noon that day a pack of hungry wolves swept down the bleak American beach looking for a New England dinner and a band of savages out for a tomahawk picnic hove in sight, and the Pilgrim Fathers thought it best for safety and warmth to go on board the Mayflower and pass the night. And during the night there came up a strong wind blowing off shore that swept the Mayflower from its moorings clear out to sea, and there was a prospect that our Forefathers, having escaped oppression in foreign lands, would yet go down under an oceanic tempest. But the next day they fortunately got control of their ship and steered her in, and the second time the Forefathers stepped ashore.
Brooklyn celebrated the first landing; New York the second landing. So I say Hail! Hail! to both celebrations, for one day, anyhow, could not do justice to such a subject; and I only wish I could have kissed the blarney stone of America, which is Plymouth Rock, so that I might have done justice to this subject. Ah, gentlemen, that Mayflower was the ark that floated the deluge of oppression, and Plymouth Rock was the Ararat on which it landed.
But let me say that these Forefathers were of no more importance than the Foremothers. As I understand it, there were eight of them–that is, four fathers and four mothers–from whom all these illustrious New Englanders descended.
Now I was not born in New England, but though not born in New England, in my boyhood I had a New England schoolmaster, whom I shall never forget. He taught us our A, B, C’s. “What is that?” “I don’t know, sir.” “That’s A” (with a slap). “What is that?” “I don’t know, sir.” (With a slap)–“That is B.” I tell you, a boy that learned his letters in that way never forgot them; and if the boy was particularly dull, then this New England schoolmaster would take him over his knee, and then the boy got his information from both directions.
But all these things aside, no one sitting at these tables has higher admiration for the Pilgrim Fathers than I have–the men who believed in two great doctrines, which are the foundation of every religion that is worth anything: namely, the fatherhood of God and the brotherhood of Man–these men of backbone and endowed with that great and magnificent attribute of stick-to-it-iveness.
CASSIUS AGAINST CÆSAR
From “Julius Cæsar”
BY WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE
I know that virtue to be in you, Brutus, As well as I do know your outward favor. Well, honor is the subject of my story.– I cannot tell what you and other men
Think of this life; but, for my single self, I had as lief not be as live to be
In awe of such a thing as I myself. I was born free as Cæsar; so were you:
We both have fed as well; and we can both Endure the winter’s cold as well as he:
For once, upon a raw and gusty day, The troubled Tiber chafing with her shores, Cæsar said to me, “Dar’st thou, Cassius, now Leap in with me into this angry flood,
And swim to yonder point?” Upon the word, Accoutred as I was, I plunged in,
And bade him follow: so, indeed, he did. The torrent roar’d, and we did buffet it With lusty sinews, throwing it aside
And stemming it with hearts of controversy; But ere we could arrive the point propos’d, Cæsar cried, “Help me, Cassius, or I sink!” I, as Aeneas, our great ancestor,
Did from the flames of Troy upon his shoulder The old Anchises bear, so from the waves of Tiber Did I the tired Cæsar. And this man
Is now become a god; and Cassius is A wretched creature, and must bend his body, If Cæsar carelessly but nod on him.
He had a fever when he was in Spain, And, when the fit was on him, I did mark How he did shake: ’tis true, this god did shake: His coward lips did from their color fly; And that same eye, whose bend doth awe the world, Did lose his luster: I did hear him groan: Ay, and that tongue of his, that bade the Romans Mark him, and write his speeches in their books, Alas, it cried, “Give me some drink, Titinius,” As a sick girl. Ye gods, it doth amaze me A man of such a feeble temper should
So get the start of the majestic world, And bear the palm alone.
II
Why, man, he doth bestride the narrow world Like a Colossus, and we petty men
Walk under his huge legs and peep about To find ourselves dishonourable graves.
Men at some time are masters of their fates; The fault, dear Brutus, is not in our stars, But in ourselves, that we are underlings. Brutus and Cæsar: what should be in that “Cæsar”? Why should that name be sounded more than yours? Write them together, yours is as fair a name; Sound them, it doth become the mouth as well; Weigh them, it is as heavy; conjure with ’em, Brutus will start a spirit as soon as Cæsar. Now, in the names of all the gods at once, Upon what meat doth this our Cæsar feed, That he is grown so great? Age, thou art shamed! Rome, thou hast lost the breed of noble bloods! When went there by an age, since the great flood, But it was fam’d with more than with one man? When could they say till now, that talked of Rome, That her wide walls encompass’d but one man? Now is it Rome indeed, and room enough,
When there is in it but one only man. O, you and I have heard our fathers say, There was a Brutus once that would have brook’d The eternal devil to keep his state in Rome As easily as a king.
THE SPIRIT OF THE SOUTH
From “The New South,” with the permission of Henry W. Grady Junior
BY HENRY W. GRADY
The New South is enamored of her new work. Her soul is stirred with the breath of a new life. The light of a grander day is falling fair on her face. She is thrilling with the consciousness of growing power and prosperity. As she stands upright, full-statured and equal among the people of the earth, breathing the keen air and looking out upon the expanding horizon, she understands that her emancipation came because in the inscrutable wisdom of God her honest purpose was crossed and her brave armies were beaten.
This is said in no spirit of time-serving or apology. The South has nothing for which to apologize. She believes that the late struggle between the States was war and not rebellion, revolution and not conspiracy, and that her convictions were as honest as yours. I should be unjust to the dauntless spirit of the South and to my own convictions if I did not make this plain in this presence. The South has nothing to take back. In my native town of Athens is a monument that crowns its central hills–a plain, white shaft. Deep cut into its shining side is a name dear to me above the names of men, that of a brave and simple man who died in brave and simple faith. Not for all the glories of New England–from Plymouth Rock all the way–would I exchange the heritage he left me in his soldier’s death. To the foot of that shaft I shall send my children’s children to reverence him who ennobled their name with his heroic blood. But, sir, speaking from the shadow of that memory, which I honor as I do nothing else on earth, I say that the cause in which he suffered and for which he gave his life was adjudged by higher and fuller wisdom than his or mine, and I am glad that the omniscient God held the balance of battle in his Almighty hand, and that human slavery was swept forever from American soil–the American Union saved from the wreck of war.
This message, Mr. President, comes to you from consecrated ground. Every foot of the soil about the city in which I live is sacred as a battle ground of the Republic. Every hill that invests it is hallowed to you by the blood of your brothers, sacred soil to all of us, rich with memories that make us purer and stronger and better, speaking an eloquent witness in its white peace and prosperity to the indissoluble union of American States and the imperishable brotherhood of the American people.
Now what answer has New England to this message? Will she permit the prejudices of war to remain in the hearts of the conquerors, when it has died in the hearts of the conquered? Will she transmit this prejudice to the next generation, that in their hearts, which never felt the generous ardor of conflict, it may perpetuate itself? Will she withhold, save in strained courtesy, the hand which straight from his soldier’s heart Grant offered to Lee at Appomattox? Will she make the vision of a restored and happy people, which gathered above the couch of your dying captain, [Footnote: General Ulysses S. Grant.] filling his heart with grace, touching his lips with praise and glorifying his path to the grave; will she make this vision on which the last sigh of his expiring soul breathed a benediction, a cheat and a delusion? If she does, the South, never abject in asking for comradeship, must accept with dignity a refusal; but if she does not, if she accepts in frankness and sincerity this message of good will and friendship, then will the prophecy of Webster, delivered in this very society forty years ago amid tremendous applause, be verified in its fullest and final sense, when he said: “Standing hand to hand and clasping hands, we should remain united as we have been for sixty years, citizens of the same country, members of the same government, united, all united now and united forever. There have been difficulties, contentions, and controversies, but I tell you that in my judgment,–
“‘Those opposed eyes,
Which like the meteors of a troubled heaven, All of one nature, of one substance bred, Did lately meet in th’ intestine shock, Shall now, in mutual well-beseeming ranks, March all one way.'”
SOMETHING RANKLING HERE
From the reply to Hayne, in the United States Senate, January, 1830. Little, Brown and Company, Boston, Publishers of “The Great Speeches and Orations of Daniel Webster”
BY DANIEL WEBSTER
The gentleman, sir, in declining to postpone the debate, told the Senate, with the emphasis of his hand upon his heart, that there was something rankling _here_ which he wished to relieve. It would not, Mr. President, be safe for the honorable member to appeal to those around him upon the question whether he did in fact make use of that word. But he may have been unconscious of it. At any rate, it is enough that he disclaims it. But still, with or without the use of that particular word, he had yet something _here_, he said, of which he wished to rid himself by an immediate reply. In this respect, sir, I have a great advantage over the honorable gentleman. There is nothing _here_, sir, which gives me the slightest uneasiness; neither fear, nor anger, nor that which is sometimes more troublesome than either, the consciousness of having been in the wrong. There is nothing, either originating _here_, or now received _here_ by the gentleman’s shot. Nothing originating here, for I had not the slightest feeling of unkindness towards the honorable member. Some passages, it is true, had occurred since our acquaintance in this body, which I could have wished might have been otherwise; but I had used philosophy and forgotten them. I paid the honorable member the attention of listening with respect to his first speech; and when he sat down, though surprised, and I must even say astonished, at some of his opinions, nothing was farther from my intention than to commence any personal warfare. Through the whole of the few remarks I made in answer, I avoided, studiously and carefully, everything which I thought possible to be construed into disrespect. And, sir, while there is thus nothing originating _here_ which I wished at any time or now wish to discharge, I must repeat also, that nothing has been received _here_ which _rankles_, or in any way gives me annoyance. I will not accuse the honorable member of violating the rules of civilized war; I will not say that he poisoned his arrows. But whether his shafts were or were not dipped in that which would have caused rankling if they had reached their destination, there was not, as it happened, quite strength enough in the bow to bring them to their mark. If he wishes now to gather up those shafts, he must look for them elsewhere; they will not be found fixed and quivering in the object at which they were aimed.
But the gentleman inquires why _he_ was made the object of such a reply. Why was _he_ singled out? If an attack has been made on the East, he, he assures us, did not begin it; it was made by the gentleman from Missouri. Sir, I answered the gentleman’s speech because I happened to hear it; and because, also, I chose to give an answer to that speech, which, if unanswered, I thought most likely to produce injurious impressions. I did not stop to inquire who was the original drawer of the bill. I found a responsible indorser before me, and it was my purpose to hold him liable, and to bring him to his just responsibility, without delay.
FAITH IN THE PEOPLE
BY JOHN BRIGHT
Our opponents have charged us with being the promoters of a dangerous excitement. They have the effrontery to say that I am the friend of public disorder. I am one of the people. Surely, if there be one thing in a free country more clear than another, it is, that any one of the people may speak openly to the people. If I speak to the people of their rights, and indicate to them the way to secure them,–if I speak of their danger to the monopolists of power,–am I not a wise counsellor, both to the people and to their rulers?
Suppose I stood at the foot of Vesuvius, or Aetna, and, seeing a hamlet or a homestead planted on its slope, I said to the dwellers in that hamlet, or in that homestead, “You see that vapor which ascends from the summit of the mountain. That vapor may become a dense, black smoke, that will obscure the sky. You see the trickling of lava from the crevices in the side of the mountain. That trickling of lava may become a river of fire. You hear that muttering in the bowels of the mountain. That muttering may become a bellowing thunder, the voice of violent convulsion, that may shake half a continent. You know that at your feet is the grave of great cities, for which there is no resurrection, as histories tell us that dynasties and aristocracies have passed away, and their names have been known no more forever.”
If I say this to the dwellers upon the slope of the mountain, and if there comes hereafter a catastrophe which makes the world to shudder, am I responsible for that catastrophe? I did not build the mountain, or fill it with explosive materials. I merely warned the men that were in danger. So, now, it is not I that am stimulating men to the violent pursuit of their acknowledged constitutional rights.
The class which has hitherto ruled in this country has failed miserably. It revels in power and wealth, whilst at its feet, a terrible peril for its future, lies the multitude which it has neglected. If a class has failed, let us try the nation.
That is our faith, that is our purpose, that is our cry. Let us try the nation. This it is which has called together these countless numbers of the people to demand a change; and from these gatherings, sublime in their vastness and their resolution, I think I see, as it were, above the hilltops of time, the glimmerings of the dawn of a better and a nobler day for the country and the people that I love so well.
THE FRENCH AGAINST HAYTI
From a lecture, “Toussaint L’Ouverture,” with the permission of Lothrop, Lee and Shepard, Boston, publishers
BY WENDELL PHILLIPS
You remember when Bonaparte returned from Elba, and Louis XVIII sent an army against him, Bonaparte descended from his carriage, opened his coat, offering his breast to their muskets, and saying, “Frenchmen, it is the Emperor!” and they ranged themselves behind him, his soldiers shouting, “Vive l’Empereur!” That was in 1815. Twelve years before, Toussaint, finding that four of his regiments had deserted and gone to Leclerc, drew his sword, flung it on the grass, went across the field to them, folded his arms, and said, “Children, can you point a bayonet at me?” The blacks fell on their knees, praying his pardon. It was against such a man that Napoleon sent his army, giving to General Leclerc, the husband of his beautiful sister Pauline, thirty thousand of his best troops, with orders to reintroduce slavery. Among these soldiers came all of Toussaint’s old mulatto rivals and foes.
Holland lent sixty ships. England promised by special message to be neutral; and you know neutrality means sneering at freedom, and sending arms to tyrants. England promised neutrality, and the black looked out on the whole civilized world marshaled against him. America, full of slaves, of course was hostile. Only the Yankee sold him poor muskets at a very high price. Mounting his horse, and riding to the eastern end of the island, Samana, he looked out on a sight such as no native had ever seen before. Sixty ships of the line, crowded by the best soldiers of Europe, rounded the point. They were soldiers who had never yet met an equal, whose tread, like Cæsar’s, had shaken Europe,–soldiers who had scaled the Pyramids, and planted the French banners on the Walls of Rome. He looked a moment, counted the flotilla, let the reins fall on the neck of his horse, and turning to Christophe, exclaimed: “All France is come to Hayti; they can only come to make us slaves; and we are lost!” He then recognized the only mistake of his life,–his confidence in Bonaparte, which had led him to disband his army.
Returning to the hills, he issued the only proclamation which bears his name and breathes vengeance: “My children, France comes to make us slaves. God gave us liberty; France has no right to take it away. Burn the cities, destroy the harvests, tear up the roads with cannon, poison the wells, show the white man the hell he comes to make”;–and he was obeyed. When the great William of Orange saw Louis XIV cover Holland with troops, he said, “Break down the dikes, give Holland back to ocean”; and Europe said, “Sublime!” When Alexander saw the armies of France descend upon Russia, he said, “Burn Moscow, starve back the invaders”; and Europe said, “Sublime!” This black saw all Europe marshaled to crush him, and gave to his people the same heroic example of defiance.
THE NECESSITY OF FORCE
From a speech in the United States Senate, March 24, 1898
BY JOHN M. THURSTON
I counseled silence and moderation from this floor when the passion of the nation seemed at white heat over the destruction of the _Maine_; but it seems to me the time for action has now come. No greater reason for it can exist to-morrow than exists to-day. Every hour’s delay only adds another chapter to the awful story of misery and death. Only one power can intervene–the United States of America. Ours is the one great nation of the New World, the mother of American republics. She holds a position of trust and responsibility toward the peoples and affairs of the whole Western Hemisphere. It was her glorious example which inspired the patriots of Cuba to raise the flag of liberty in her eternal hills. We cannot refuse to accept this responsibility which the God of the universe has placed upon us as the one great power in the New World. We must act! What shall our action be? Some say, The acknowledgment of the belligerency of the revolutionists. The hour and the opportunity for that have passed away. Others say, Let us by resolution or official proclamation recognize the independence of the Cubans. It is too late for even such recognition to be of great avail. Others say, Annexation to the United States. God forbid! I would oppose annexation with my latest breath. The people of Cuba are not our people; they cannot assimilate with us; and beyond all that, I am utterly and unalterably opposed to any departure from the declared policy of the fathers, which would start this republic for the first time upon a career of conquest and dominion utterly at variance with the avowed purposes and the manifest destiny of popular government.
There is only one action possible, if any is taken; that is, intervention for the independence of the island. We cannot intervene and save Cuba without the exercise of force, and force means war; war means blood. The lowly Nazarene on the shores of Galilee preached the divine doctrine of love, “Peace on earth, good will toward men.” Not peace on earth at the expense of liberty and humanity. Not good will toward men who despoil, enslave, degrade, and starve to death their fellow-men. I believe in the doctrine of Christ. I believe in the doctrine of peace; but men must have liberty before there can come abiding peace. When has a battle for humanity and liberty ever been won except by force? What barricade of wrong, injustice, and oppression has ever been carried except by force?
Force compelled the signature of unwilling royalty to the great Magna Charta; force put life into the Declaration of Independence and made effective the Emancipation Proclamation; force waved the flag of revolution over Bunker Hill and marked the snows of Valley Forge with bloodstained feet; force held the broken line of Shiloh, climbed the flame-swept hill at Chattanooga, and stormed the clouds on Lookout Heights; force marched with Sherman to the sea, rode with Sheridan in the Valley of the Shenandoah, and gave Grant victory at Appomattox; force saved the Union, kept the stars in the flag, made “niggers” men. The time for God’s force has come again. Let the impassioned lips of American patriots once more take up the song:–
In the beauty of the lilies Christ was born across the sea, With a glory in His bosom that transfigured you and me. As He died to make men holy, let us die to make men free, For God is marching on.
Others may hesitate, others may procrastinate, others may plead for further diplomatic negotiation, which means delay, but for me, I am ready to act now, and for my action, I am ready to answer to my conscience, my country, and my God.
AGAINST WAR WITH MEXICO
From a speech to the United States Senate, February 11, 1847
BY THOMAS CORWIN
The President has said he does not expect to hold Mexican territory by conquest. Why, then, conquer it? Why waste thousands of lives and millions of money fortifying towns and creating governments, if, at the end of the war, you retire from the graves of your soldiers and the desolated country of your foes, only to get money from Mexico for the expense of all your toil and sacrifice? Who ever heard, since Christianity was propagated among men, of a nation taxing its people, enlisting its young men, and marching off two thousand miles to fight a people merely to be paid for it in money? What is this but hunting a market for blood, selling the lives of your young men, marching them in regiments to be slaughtered and paid for like oxen and brute beasts?
Sir, this is, when stripped naked, that atrocious idea first promulgated in the President’s message, and now advocated here, of fighting on till we can get our indemnity for the past as well as the present slaughter. We have chastised Mexico, and if it were worth while to do so, we have, I dare say, satisfied the world that we can fight.
Sir, I have read in some account of your Battle of Monterey, of a lovely Mexican girl, who, with the benevolence of an angel in her bosom and the robust courage of a hero in her heart, was busily engaged during the bloody conflict, amid the crash of falling houses, the groans of the dying, and the wild shriek of battle, in carrying water to slake the burning thirst of the wounded of either host. While bending over a wounded American soldier, a cannonball struck her and blew her to atoms! Sir, I do not charge my brave, generous-hearted countrymen who fought that fight with this. No, no! We who send them– we who know what scenes like this, which might send tears of sorrow “down Pluto’s iron cheek,” are the invariable, inevitable attendants on war–we are accountable for this. And this–this is the way we are to be made known to Europe. This–this is to be the undying renown of free, republican America! “She has stormed a city–killed many of its inhabitants of both sexes–she has room”! So it will read. Sir, if this were our only history, then may God of His mercy grant that its volume may speedily come to a close.
Why is it, sir, that we, the United States, a people of yesterday compared with the older nations of the world, should be waging war for territory–for “room?” Look at your country, extending from the Alleghany Mountains to the Pacific Ocean, capable itself of sustaining in comfort a larger population than will be in the whole Union for one hundred years to come. Over this vast expanse of territory your population is now so sparse that I believe we provided, at the last session, a regiment of mounted men to guard the mail from the frontier of Missouri to the mouth of the Columbia; and yet you persist in the ridiculous assertion, “I want room.” One would imagine, from the frequent reiteration of the complaint, that you had a bursting, teeming population, whose energy was paralyzed, whose enterprise was crushed, for want of space. Why should we be so weak or wicked as to offer this idle apology for ravaging a neighboring Republic? It will impose on no one at home or abroad.
Do we not know, Mr. President, that it is a law never to be repealed that falsehood shall be short-lived? Was it not ordained of old that truth only shall abide for ever? Whatever we may say to-day, or whatever we may write in our books, the stern tribunal of history will review it all, detect falsehood, and bring us to judgment before that posterity which shall bless or curse us, as we may act now, wisely or otherwise. We may hide in the grave (which awaits us all) in vain; we may hope there, like the foolish bird that hides its head in the sand, in the vain belief that its body is not seen; yet even there this preposterous excuse of want of “room” shall be laid bare and the quick- coming future will decide that it was a hypocritical pretense under which we sought to conceal the avarice which prompted us to covet and to seize by force that which was not ours.
THE MURDER OF LOVEJOY
From “Speeches and Lectures,” with the permission of Lothrop, Lee and Shepard, Boston, publishers.
BY WENDELL PHILLIPS
Mr. Chairman: We have met for the freest discussion of these resolutions, and the events which gave rise to them. I hope I shall be permitted to express my surprise at the sentiments of the last speaker,–surprise not only at such sentiments from such a man, but at the applause they have received within these walls. A comparison has been drawn between the events of the Revolution and the tragedy at Alton. We have heard it asserted here, in Faneuil Hall, that Great Britain had a right to tax the Colonies, and we have heard the mob at Alton, the drunken murderers of Lovejoy, compared to those patriot fathers who threw the tea overboard! Fellow citizens, is this Faneuil Hall doctrine? The mob at Alton were met to wrest from a citizen his just rights,–met to resist the laws. We have been told that our fathers did the same; and the glorious mantle of Revolutionary precedent has been thrown over the mobs of our day. To make out their title to such defense, the gentleman says that the British Parliament had a _right_ to tax these colonies. It is manifest that, without this, his parallel falls to the ground; for Lovejoy had stationed himself within constitutional bulwarks. He was not only defending the freedom of the press, but he was under his own roof, in arms with the sanction of the civil authority. The men who assailed him went against and over the laws. The _mob_, as the gentleman terms it,–mob, forsooth! certainly we sons of the tea-spillers are a marvelously patient generation!–the “orderly mob” which assembled in the Old South to destroy the tea were met to resist, not the laws, but illegal exactions. Shame on the American who calls the tea tax and stamp act _laws!_ Our fathers resisted, not the King’s prerogative, but the King’s usurpation. To find any other account, you must read our Revolutionary history upside down. Our state archives are loaded with arguments of John Adams to prove the taxes laid by the British Parliament unconstitutional,–beyond its power. It was not till this was made out that the men of New England rushed to arms. The arguments of the Council Chamber and the House of Representatives preceded and sanctioned the contest. To draw the conduct of our ancestors into a precedent for mobs, for a right to resist laws we ourselves have enacted, is an insult to their memory. The difference between the excitements of those days and our own, which the gentleman in kindness to the latter has overlooked, is simply this: the man of that day went for the right, as secured by the laws. They were the people rising to sustain the laws and constitution of the Province. The rioters of our day go for their own wills, right or wrong. Sir, when I heard the gentleman lay down principles which place the murderers of Alton side by side with Otis and Hancock, with Quincy and Adams, I thought those pictured lips [pointing to the portraits in the Hall] would have broken into voice to rebuke the recreant American,–the slanderer of the dead. The gentleman said that he should sink into insignificance if he dared to gainsay the principles of these resolutions. Sir, for the sentiments he has uttered, on soil consecrated by the prayers of Puritans and the blood of patriots, the earth should have yawned and swallowed him up.
I am glad, Sir, to see this crowded house. It is good for us to be here. When Liberty is in danger, Faneuil Hall has the right, it is her duty, to strike the keynote for these United States.
DEPICTING CHARACTER
A TALE OF THE PLAINS
From “Hunting the Grizzly,” with the permission of G. P. Putnam’s Sons, New York and London, publishers.
BY THEODORE ROOSEVELT
One of my valued friends in the mountains, and one of the best hunters with whom I ever traveled, was a man who had a peculiarly light-hearted way of looking at conventional social obligations. Though in some ways a true backwoods Donatello, he was a man of much shrewdness and of great courage and resolution. Moreover, he possessed what only a few men do possess, the capacity to tell the truth. He saw facts as they were, and could tell them as they were, and he never told an untruth unless for very weighty reasons. He was preeminently a philosopher, of a happy, skeptical turn of mind. He had no prejudices.
On one occasion when we were out together we killed a bear, and after skinning it, took a bath in a lake. I noticed he had a scar on the side of his foot, and asked him how he got it, to which he responded, with indifference:–
“Oh, that? Why, a man shoo tin’ at me to make me dance, that was all.”
I expressed some curiosity in the matter, and he went on:
“Well, the way of it was this: It was when I was keeping a saloon in New Mexico, and there was a man there by the name of Fowler, and there was a reward on him of three thousand dollars–“
“Put on him by the State?”
“No, put on by his wife,” said my friend; “and there was this–“
“Hold on,” I interrupted; “put on by his wife, did you say?”
“Yes, by his wife. Him and her had been keepin’ a faro bank, you see, and they quarreled about it, so she just put a reward on him, and so–“
“Excuse me,” I said, “but do you mean to say that this reward was put on publicly?” to which my friend answered with an air of gentlemanly boredom at being interrupted to gratify my thirst for irrelevant detail:–
“Oh, no, not publicly. She just mentioned it to six or eight intimate personal friends.”
“Go on,” I responded, somewhat overcome by this instance of the primitive simplicity with which New Mexican matrimonial disputes were managed, and he continued:–
“Well, two men come ridin’ in to see me to borrow my guns. My guns was Colt’s self-cockers. It was a new thing then, and they was the only ones in town. These come to me, and ‘Simpson,’ says they, ‘we want to borrow your guns; we are goin’ to kill Fowler.’
“‘Hold on for a moment,’ said I, ‘I am willin’ to lend you them guns, but I ain’t goin’ to know what you’r’ goin’ to do with them, no, sir; but of course you can have the guns.'” Here my friend’s face lightened pleasantly, and he continued:–
“Well, you may easily believe I felt surprised next day when Fowler come ridin’ in, and, says he, ‘Simpson, here’s your guns!’ He had shot them two men! ‘Well, Fowler,’ says I, ‘if I had known them men was after you, I’d never have let them have the guns nohow,’ says I. That wasn’t true, for I did know it, but there was no cause to tell him that.”
I murmured my approval of such prudence, and Simpson continued, his eyes gradually brightening with the light of agreeable reminiscence:–
“Well, they up and they took Fowler before the justice of peace. The justice of the peace was a Turk.”
“Now, Simpson, what do you mean by that?” I interrupted.
“Well, he come from Turkey,” said Simpson, and I again sank back, wondering briefly what particular variety of Mediterranean outcast had drifted down to Mexico to be made a justice of the peace. Simpson laughed and continued: “That Fowler was a funny fellow. The Turk, he committed Fowler, and Fowler, he riz up and knocked him down and tromped all over him and made him let him go!”
“That was an appeal to a higher law,” I observed. Simpson assented cheerily, and continued:–
“Well, that Turk, he got nervous for fear Fowler was goin’ to kill him, and so he comes to me and offers me twenty-five dollars a day to protect him from Fowler; and I went to Fowler, and ‘Fowler,’ says I, ‘that Turk’s offered me twenty-five dollars a day to protect him from you. Now, I ain’t goin’ to get shot for no twenty-five dollars a day, and if you are goin’ to kill the Turk, just say so and go and do it; but if you ain’t goin’ to kill the Turk, there’s no reason why I shouldn’t earn that twenty-five dollars a day!’ and Fowler, says he, ‘I ain’t goin’ to touch the Turk; you just go right ahead and protect him.'”
So Simpson “protected” the Turk from the imaginary danger of Fowler, for about a week, at twenty-five dollars a day.
Then one evening he happened to go out and meet Fowler, “and,” said he, “the moment I saw him I know he felt mean, for he begun to shoot at my feet,” which certainly did seem to offer presumptive evidence of meanness. Simpson continued:–
“I didn’t have no gun, so I just had to stand there and take it until something distracted his attention, and I went off home to get my gun and kill him, but I wanted to do it perfectly lawful; so I went up to the mayor (he was playin’ poker with one of the judges), and says I to him, ‘Mr. Mayor,’ says I, ‘I am goin’ to shoot Fowler.’ And the mayor he riz out of his chair and he took me by the hand, and says he, ‘Mr. Simpson, if you do I will stand by you’; and the judge he says, ‘I’ll go on your bond.'”
Fortified by this cordial approval of the executive and judicial branches of the government, Mr. Simpson started on his quest. Meanwhile, however, Fowler had cut up another prominent citizen, and they already had him in jail. The friends of law and order, feeling some little distrust as to the permanency of their own zeal for righteousness, thought it best to settle the matter before there was time for cooling, and accordingly, headed by Simpson, the mayor, the judge, the Turk, and other prominent citizens of the town, they broke into the jail and hanged Fowler. The point in the hanging which especially tickled my friend’s fancy as he lingered over the reminiscence was one that was rather too ghastly to appeal to our own sense of humor. In the Turk’s mind there still rankled the memory of Fowler’s very unprofessional conduct while figuring before him as a criminal. Said Simpson, with a merry twinkle of the eye: “Do you know, that Turk, he was a right funny fellow too after all. Just as the boys were going to string up Fowler, says he, ‘Boys, stop; one moment, gentlemen,–Mr. Fowler, good-by,’ and he blew a kiss to him!”
GUNGA DIN
From “Departmental Ditties,” with the permission of A. P. Watt and Son, London, and Doubleday, Page and Company, New York.
BY RUDYARD KIPLING
You may talk o’ gin and beer
When you’re quartered safe out ‘ere, An’ you’re sent to penny-fights an’ Aldershot it; But when it comes to slaughter
You will do your work on water,
An’ you’ll lick the bloomin’ boots of ‘im that’s got it. Now in Injia’s sunny clime,
Where I used to spend my time
A-servin’ of ‘Er Majesty the Queen, Of all them blackfaced crew
The finest man I knew
Was our regimental bhisti, Gunga Din. He was “Din! Din! Din!
You limping lump o’ brick-dust, Gunga Din! Hi! slippery hitherao!
Water, get it! Panee lao! [Footnote: Bring water swiftly.] You squidgy-nosed old idol, Gunga Din.”
The uniform ‘e wore
Was nothin’ much before,
An’ rather less than ‘arf o’ that be’ind, For a piece o’ twisty rag
An’ a goatskin water-bag
Was all the field-equipment ‘e could find. When the sweatin’ troop-train lay
In a sidin’ through the day,
Where the ‘eat would make your bloomin’ eyebrows crawl, We shouted “Harry By!” [Footnote: O Brother] Till our throats were bricky-dry,
Then we wopped ‘im ’cause ‘e couldn’t serve us all. It was “Din! Din! Din!
You ‘eathen, where the mischief ‘ave you been? You put some juldee in it
Or I’ll marrow you this minute, [Footnote: Hit you] If you don’t fill up my helmet, Gunga Din!”
‘E would dot an’ carry one
Till the longest day was done;
An’ ‘e didn’t seem to know the use o’ fear. If we charged or broke or cut,
You could bet your bloomin’ nut,
‘E’d be waitin’ fifty paces right flank rear. With ‘is mussick [Footnote: Water skin] on ‘is back, ‘E would skip with our attack,
An’ watch us till the bugles made “Retire,” An’ for all ‘is dirty ‘ide
‘E was white, clear white, inside
When ‘e went to tend the wounded under fire! It was “Din! Din! Din!”
With the bullets kickin’ dust-spots on the green. When the cartridges ran out,
You could hear the front-files shout, “Hi! ammunition-mules an’ Gunga Din!”
I sha’n’t forgit the night
When I dropped be’ind the fight
With a bullet where my belt-plate should ‘a’ been. I was chokin’ mad with thirst,
An’ the man that spied me first
Was our good old grinnin’, gruntin’ Gunga Din. ‘E lifted up my ‘ead,
An’ he plugged me where I bled,
An’ ‘e guv me ‘arf-a-pint o’ water-green: It was crawlin’ and it stunk,
But of all the drinks I’ve drunk,
I’m gratefullest to one from Gunga Din. It was “Din! Din! Din!”
‘Ere’s a beggar with a bullet through ‘is spleen; ‘E’s chawin’ up the ground,
An’ ‘e’s kickin’ all around:
“For Gawd’s sake git the water, Gunga Din!”
‘E carried me away
To where a dooli lay,
An’ a bullet come an’ drilled the beggar clean. ‘E put me safe inside,
An’ just before ‘e died:
“I ‘ope you liked your drink,” sez Gunga Din. So I’ll meet ‘im later on
At the place where ‘e is gone–
Where it’s always double drill and no canteen; ‘E’ll be squattin’ on the coals,
Givin’ drink to poor damned souls,
An’ I’ll get a swig in hell from Gunga Din! Yes, Din! Din! Din!
You Lazarushian-leather Gunga Din!
Though I’ve belted you and flayed you, By the living Gawd that made you,
You’re a better man than I am, Gunga Din!
ADDRESS OF SERGEANT BUZFUZ
From “The Pickwick Papers”
BY CHARLES DICKENS
Sergeant Buzfuz rose with all the majesty and dignity which the grave nature of the proceedings demanded, and having whispered to Dodson, and conferred briefly with Fogg, pulled his gown over his shoulders, settled his wig, and addressed the jury.
Sergeant Buzfuz began by saying that never, in the whole course of his professional experience,–never, from the very first moment of his applying himself to the study and practice of the law, had he approached a case with such a heavy sense of the responsibility imposed upon him,–a responsibility he could never have supported, were he not buoyed up and sustained by a conviction, so strong that it amounted to positive certainty, that the cause of truth and justice, or, in other words, the cause of his much-injured and most oppressed client, _must_ prevail with the high-minded and intelligent dozen of men whom he now saw in that box before him.
Counsel always begin in this way, because it puts the jury on the best terms with themselves, and makes them think what sharp fellows they must be. A visible effect was produced immediately; several jurymen beginning to take voluminous notes.
“The plaintiff is a widow; yes, gentlemen, a widow. The late Mr. Bardell, after enjoying, for many years, the esteem and confidence of his sovereign, as one of the guardians of his royal revenues, glided almost imperceptibly from the world, to seek elsewhere for that repose and peace which a custom-house can never afford.”
This was a pathetic description of the decease of Mr. Bardell, who had been knocked on the head with a quart-pot in a public-house cellar.
“Of this man Pickwick I will say little; the subject presents but few attractions; and I, gentlemen, am not the man, nor are you, gentlemen, the men, to delight in the contemplation of revolting heartlessness and of systematic villainy.”
Here Mr. Pickwick, who had been writhing in silence, gave a violent start, as if some vague idea of assaulting Sergeant Buzfuz, in the august presence of justice and law, suggested itself to his mind.
“I say systematic villainy, gentlemen,” said Sergeant Buzfuz, looking through Mr. Pickwick, and talking _at_ him, “and when I say systematic villainy, let me tell the defendant, Pickwick,–if he be in court, as I am informed he is,–that it would have been more decent in him, more becoming, in better judgment, and in better taste, if he had stopped away.
“I shall show you, gentlemen, that for two years Pickwick continued to reside without interruption or intermission at Mrs. Bardell’s house. I shall show you that, on many occasions, he gave halfpence, and on some occasions even sixpences, to her little boy; and I shall prove to you, by a witness whose testimony it will be impossible for my learned friend to weaken or controvert, that on one occasion he patted the boy on the head, and, after inquiring whether he had won any _alley tors_ or _commoneys_ lately (both of which I understand to be a particular species of marbles much prized by the youth of this town), made use of this remarkable expression: ‘How should you like to have another father?’ I shall prove to you, gentlemen, on the testimony of three of his own friends,–most unwilling witnesses, gentlemen,–most unwilling witnesses,–that on that morning he was discovered by them holding the plaintiff in his arms, and soothing her agitation by his caresses and endearments.
“And now, gentlemen, but one word more. Two letters have passed between these parties,–letters which are admitted to be in the handwriting of the defendant. Let me read the first:–‘Garraway’s, twelve o’clock. Dear Mrs. B.–Chops and Tomato sauce. Yours, Pickwick.’ Gentlemen, what does this mean? Chops! Gracious heavens! and Tomato sauce! Gentlemen, is the happiness of a sensitive and confiding female to be trifled away by such shallow artifices as these? The next has no date whatever, which is in itself suspicious. ‘Dear Mrs. B., I shall not be at home till to-morrow. Slow coach.’ And then follows this very remarkable expression. ‘Don’t trouble yourself about the warming-pan.’ Why, gentlemen, who _does_ trouble himself about a warming-pan? Why is Mrs. Bardell so earnestly entreated not to agitate herself about this warming-pan, unless it is, as I assert it to be, a mere cover for hidden fire,–a mere substitute for some endearing word or promise, agreeably to a preconcerted system of correspondence, artfully contrived by Pickwick with a view to his contemplated desertion, and which I am not in a condition to explain?
“Enough of this. My client’s hopes and prospects are ruined. But Pickwick, gentlemen,–Pickwick, the ruthless destroyer of this domestic oasis in the desert of Goswell Street,–Pickwick, who has choked up the well, and thrown ashes on the sward,–Pickwick, who comes before you to-day with his heartless Tomato sauce and warming-pans,–Pickwick still rears his head with unblushing effrontery, and gazes without a sigh on the ruin he has made. Damages, gentlemen, heavy damages, are the only punishment with which you can visit him, the only recompense you can award to my client. And for those damages she now appeals to an enlightened, a high-minded, a right-feeling, a conscientious, a dispassionate, a sympathizing, a contemplative jury of her civilized countrymen.”
A NATURAL PHILOSOPHER
BY MACCABE
Ladies and Gentlemen: I see so many foine-lookin’ people sittin’ before me that if you’ll excuse me I’ll be after takin’ a seat meself. You don’t know me, I’m thinking, as some of yees ‘ud be noddin’ to me afore this. I’m a walkin’ pedestrian, a travelin’ philosopher. Terry O’Mulligan’s me name. I’m from Dublin, where many philosophers before me was raised and bred. Oh, philosophy is a foine study! I don’t know anything about it, but it’s a foine study! Before I kirn over I attended an important meetin’ of philosophers in Dublin, and the discussin’ and talkin’ you’d hear there about the world ‘ud warm the very heart of Socrates or Aristotle himself. Well, there was a great many _imminent_ and learned _min_ there at the meetin’, and I was there too, and while we was in the very thickest of a heated argument, one comes to me and says he, “Do you know what we’re talkin’ about?” “I do,” says I, “but I don’t understand yees.” “Could ye explain the sun’s motion around the earth?” says he. “I could,” says I, “but I’d not know could you understand or not.” “Well,” says he, “we’ll see,” says he. Sure’n I didn’t know anything, how to get out of it then, so I piled in, “for,” says I to myself, “never let on to any one that you don’t know anything, but make them believe that you do know all about it.” So says I to him, takin’ up me shillalah this way (holding a very crooked stick perpendicular), “We’ll take that for the straight line of the earth’s equator”–how’s that for gehography? (to the audience). Ah, that was straight till the other day I bent it in an argument. “Wery good,” says he. “Well,” says I, “now the sun rises in the east” (placing the disengaged hand at the eastern end of the stick). Well, he couldn’t deny that. “And when he gets up he
Darts his rosy beams
Through the mornin’ gleams.”
Do you moind the poetry there? (to the audience with a smile). “And he keeps on risin’ and risin’ till he reaches his meriden.” “What’s that?” says he. “His dinner-toime,” says I; “sure’n that’s my Latin for dinner-toime, and when he gets his dinner
He sinks to rest
Behind the glorious hills of the west.”
Oh, begorra, there’s more poetry! I fail it creepin’ out all over me. “There,” says I, well satisfied with myself, “will that do for ye?” “You haven’t got done with him yet,” says he. “Done with him,” says I, kinder mad like; “what more do you want me to do with him? Didn’t I bring him from the east to the west? What more do you want?” “Oh,” says he, “you’ll have to bring him back again to the east to rise next mornin’.” By Saint Patrick! and wasn’t I near betrayin’ me ignorance, Sure’n I thought there was a large family of suns, and they rise one after the other. But I gathered meself quick, and, says I to him, “Well,” says I, “I’m surprised you axed me that simple question. I thought any man ‘ud know,” says I, “when the sun sinks to rest in the west–when the sun–” says I. “You said that before,” says he. “Well, I want to press it stronger upon you,” says I. “When the sun sinks to rest in the east–no–west, why he–why he waits till it grows dark, and then he goes _back in the noight toime_!”
RESPONSE TO A TOAST
From “A Charity Dinner”
BY LITCHFIELD MOSELEY
“Milors and Gentlemans!” commences the Frenchman, elevating his eyebrows and shrugging his shoulders. “Milors and Gentlemans–You excellent chairman, M. le Baron de Mount-Stuart, he have say to me, ‘Make de toast.’ Den I say to him dat I have no toast to make; but he nudge my elbow ver soft, and say dat dere is von toast dat nobody but von Frenchman can make proper; and, derefore, wid your kind permission, I vill make de toast. ‘De brevete is de sole of de feet,’ as you great philosophere, Dr. Johnson, do say, in dat amusing little vork of his, de Pronouncing Dictionnaire; and, derefore, I vill not say ver moch to de point. Ven I vas a boy, about so moch tall, and used for to promenade de streets of Marseilles et of Rouen, vid no feet to put onto my shoe, I nevare to have expose dat dis day vould to have arrive. I vas to begin de vorld as von garçon–or, vat you call in dis countrie, von vaitaire in a café–vere I vork ver hard, vid no habillemens at all to put onto myself, and ver little food to eat, excep’ von old blue blouse vat vas give to me by de proprietaire, just for to keep myself fit to be showed at; but, tank goodness, tings dey have change ver moch for me since dat time, and I have rose myself, seulement par mon industrie et perseverance. Ah! mes amis! ven I hear to myself de flowing speech, de oration magnifique of you Lor’ Maire, Monsieur Gobbledown, I feel dat it is von great privilege for von étrangé to sit at de same table, and to eat de same food, as dat grand, dat majestique man, who are de terreur of de voleurs and de brigands of de metropolis; and who is also, I for to suppose, a halterman and de chef of you common scoundrel. Milors and gentlemans, I feel dat I can perspire to no greatare honneur dan to be von common scoundrelman myself; but, hélas! dat plaisir are not for me, as I are not freeman of your great cité, not von liveryman servant of von of you compagnies joint-stock. But I must not forget de toast. Milors and Gentlemans! De immortal Shakispeare he have write, ‘De ting of beauty are de joy for nevermore.’ It is de ladies who are de toast. Vat is more entrancing dan de charmante smile, de soft voice, der vinking eye of de beautiful lady! It is de ladies who do sweeten de cares of life. It is de ladies who are de guiding stars of our existence. It is de ladies who do cheer but not inebriate, and, derefore, vid all homage to de dear sex, de toast dat I have to propose is, “De Ladies! God bless dem all!”
PARTRIDGE AT THE PLAY
From “Tom Jones”
BY HENRY FIELDING
In the first row of the first gallery did Mr. Jones, Mrs. Miller, her youngest daughter, and Partridge, take their places. Partridge immediately declared it was the finest place he had ever been in. When the first music was played, he said, “It was a wonder how so many fiddlers could play at one time, without putting one another out.” While the fellow was lighting the upper candles, he cried out to Mrs. Miller, “Look, look, madam, the very picture of the man in the end of the common-prayer book before the gunpowder-treason service.” Nor could he help observing, with a sigh, when all the candles were lighted, “That here were candles enough burnt in one night, to keep an honest poor family for a whole twelvemonth.”
As soon as the play, which was Hamlet, Prince of Denmark, began, Partridge was all attention, nor did he break silence till the entrance of the ghost; upon which he asked Jones, “What man that was in the strange dress; something,” said he, “like what I have seen in a picture. Sure it is not armor, is it?” Jones answered, “That is the ghost.” To which Partridge replied with a smile, “Persuade me to that, sir, if you can. … No, no, sir, ghosts don’t appear in such dresses as that, neither.” In this mistake, which caused much laughter in the neighborhood of Partridge, he was suffered to continue, till the scene between the ghost and Hamlet, when Partridge gave that credit to Mr. Garrick, which he had denied to Jones, and fell into so violent a trembling, that his knees knocked against each other. Jones asked him what was the matter, and whether he was afraid of the warrior upon the stage? “O la! sir,” said he, “I perceive now it is what you told me. … Nay, you may call me coward if you will; but if that little man there upon the stage is not frightened, I never saw any man frightened in my life. Ay, ay: go along with you: Ay, to be sure! Who’s fool then? Will you? Lud have mercy upon such foolhardiness!–Whatever happens, it is good enough for you.–Follow you? I’d follow the devil as soon. Nay, perhaps it is the devil–for they say he can put on what likeness he pleases.–Oh! here he is again.–No farther! No, you have gone far enough already; farther than I’d have gone for all the king’s dominions.” Jones offered to speak, but Partridge cried, “Hush, hush! dear sir, don’t you hear him?” And during the whole speech of the ghost, he sat with his eyes fixed partly on the ghost and partly on Hamlet, and with his mouth open; the same passions which succeeded each other in Hamlet, succeeding likewise in him.
During the second act, Partridge made very few remarks. He greatly admired the fineness of the dresses; nor could he help observing upon the king’s countenance. “Well,” said he, “how people may be deceived by faces! _Nulla fides fronti_ is, I find, a true saying. Who would think, by looking into the king’s face, that he had ever committed a murder?” He then inquired after the ghost; but Jones, who intended he should be surprised, gave him no other satisfaction than “that he might possibly see him again soon, and in a flash of fire.”
Partridge sat in a fearful expectation of this; and now, when the ghost made his next appearance, Partridge cried out, “There, sir, now; what say you now? is he frightened now or no? As much frightened as you think me, and, to be sure, nobody can help some fears. I would not be in so bad a condition as what’s his name, squire Hamlet, is there, for all the world. Bless me! what’s become of the spirit! As I am a living soul, I thought I saw him sink into the earth.” “Indeed, you saw right,” answered Jones, “Well, well,” cries Partridge, “I know it is only a play: and besides, if there was any thing in all this, Madam Miller would not laugh so; for as to you, sir, you would not be afraid, I believe, if the devil was here in person.–There, there–Aye, no wonder you are in such a passion; shake the vile wicked wretch to pieces. If she was my own mother, I would serve her so. To be sure all duty to a mother is forfeited by such wicked doings.–Aye, go about your business, I hate the sight of you.”
Little more worth remembering occurred during the play, at the end of which Jones asked him which of the players he had liked best? To this he answered, with some appearance of indignation at the question, “The king, without doubt.” “Indeed, Mr. Partridge,” says Mrs. Miller, “you are not of the same opinion with the town; for they are all agreed, that Hamlet is acted by the best player who ever was on the stage.” “He the best player!” cries Partridge, with a contemptuous sneer, “why, I could act as well as he myself. I am sure, if I had seen a ghost, I should have looked in the very same manner, and done just as ne did. And then, to be sure, in that scene, as you called it, between him and his mother, where you told me he acted so fine, why, Lord help me, any man, that is, any good man, that had such a mother, would have done exactly the same. I know you are only joking with me; but indeed, madam, though I was never at a play in London, yet I have seen acting before in the country; and the king for my money; he speaks all his words distinctly, half as loud again as the other.–Anybody may see he is an actor.”
A MAN’S A MAN FOR A’ THAT
BY ROBERT BURNS
Is there for honest poverty
That hings his head, an’ a’ that?
The coward slave, we pass him by–
We dare be poor for a’ that.
For a’ that, an’ a’ that,
Our toils obscure, an’ a’ that,
The rank is but the guinea’s stamp, The man’s the gowd [Footnote: gold] for a’ that!
What tho’ on hamely [Footnote: homely, plain] fare we dine, Wear hoddin [Footnote: homespun] gray, an’ a’ that; Gie fools their silks, and knaves their wine– A man’s a man, for a’ that.
For a’ that, an’ a’ that,
Their tinsel show, an’ a’ that,
The honest man, though e’er sae poor, Is king o’ men for a’ that!
Ye see yon birkie [Footnote: fellow], ca’d a lord, Wha struts, an’ stares, an’ a’ that;
Tho’ hundreds worship at his word,
He’s but a coof [Footnote: fool (pronounce like German _o_ or _oe_)] for a’ that;
For a’ that, an’ a’ that,
His riband, star, an’ a’ that;
The man of independent mind,
He looks an’ laughs at a’ that.
A prince can mak a belted knight,
A marquis, duke, an’ a’ that;
But an honest man’s aboon [Footnote: above] his might– Gude faith, he maunna fa’ [Footnote: must not claim (to make the honest man)] that!
For a’ that, an’ a’ that,
Their dignities, an’ a’ that,
The pith o’ sense, an’ pride o’ worth, Are higher ranks than a’ that.
Then let us pray that come it may,
As come it will for a’ that,
That sense an’ worth, o’er a’ the earth, Shall bear the gree, [Footnote: prize] an’ a’ that. For a’ that, an’ a’ that,
It’s comin’ yet, for a’ that–
That man to man, the warld o’er,
Shall brothers be for a’ that.
ARTEMUS WARD’S LECTURE
From “Complete Works of Artemus Ward” with the permission of the G. W. Dillingham Company, New York, publishers.
BY CHARLES FARRAR BROWN (ARTEMUS WARD)
I don’t expect to do great things here–but I have thought that if I could make money enough to buy me a passage to New Zealand I should feel that I had not lived in vain. I don’t want to live in vain. I’d rather live in Texas–or here.
If you should be dissatisfied with anything here to-night–I will admit you all free in New Zealand–if you will come to me there for the orders. Any respectable cannibal will tell you where I live. This shows that I have a forgiving spirit.
I really don’t care for money. I only travel round to see the world and to exhibit my clothes. These clothes I have on have been a great success in America.
How often do large fortunes ruin young men! I should like to be ruined, but I can get on very well as I am.
I am not an Artist. I don’t paint myself–though perhaps if I were a middle-aged single lady I should–yet I have a passion for pictures.–I have had a great many pictures–photographs–taken of myself. Some of them are very pretty–rather sweet to look at for a short time–and as I said before, I like them. I’ve always loved pictures. I could draw on wood at a very tender age. When a mere child I once drew a small cartload of raw turnips over a wooden bridge.–The people of the village noticed me. I drew their attention. They said I had a future before me. Up to that time I had an idea it was behind me.
Time passed on. It always does, by the way. You may possibly have noticed that Time passes on.–It is a kind of way Time has.
I became a man. I haven’t distinguished myself at all as an artist–but I have always been more or less mixed up with art. I have an uncle who takes photographs–and I have a servant who–takes anything he can get his hands on.
When I was in Rome–Rome in New York State, I mean–a distinguished sculpist wanted to sculp me. But I said “No.” I saw through the designing man. My model once in his hands–he would have flooded the market with my busts–and I couldn’t stand it to see everybody going round with a bust of me. Everybody would want one of course–and wherever I should go I should meet the educated classes with my bust, taking it home to their families. This would be more than my modesty could stand–and I should have to return home–where my creditors are.
I like art. I admire dramatic art–although I failed as an actor.
It was in my schoolboy days that I failed as an actor.–The play was “The Ruins of Pompeii.”–I played the ruins. It was not a very successful performance–but it was better than the “Burning Mountain.” He was not good. He was a bad Vesuvius.
The remembrance often makes me ask–“Where are the boys of my youth?” I assure you this is not a conundrum. Some are amongst you here–some in America–some are in jail.
Hence arises a most touching question–“Where are the girls of my youth?” Some are married–some would like to be.
Oh, my Maria! Alas! she married another. They frequently do. I hope she is happy–because I am.–Some people are not happy. I have noticed that.
A gentleman friend of mine came to me one day with tears in his eyes. I said, “Why these weeps?” He said he had a mortgage on his farm–and wanted to borrow $200. I lent him the money–and he went away. Some time afterward he returned with more tears. He said he must leave me forever. I ventured to remind him of the $200 he borrowed. He was much cut up. I thought I would not be hard upon him–so told him I would throw off $100. He brightened–shook my hand–and said,–“Old friend– I won’t allow you to outdo me in liberality–I’ll throw off the other hundred.”
I like Music.–I can’t sing. As a singist I am not a success. I am saddest when I sing. So are those who hear me. They are sadder even than I am.
I met a man in Oregon who hadn’t any teeth–not a tooth in his head– yet that man could play on the bass drum better than any man I ever met. He kept a hotel. They have queer hotels in Oregon. I remember one where they gave me a bag of oats for a pillow–I had nightmares of course. In the morning the landlord said,–“How do you feel–old hoss– hay?”–I told him I felt my oats.
As a manager I was always rather more successful than as an actor.
Some years ago I engaged a celebrated Living American Skeleton for a tour through Australia. He was the thinnest man I ever saw. He was a splendid skeleton. He didn’t weigh anything scarcely–and I said to myself–the people of Australia will flock to see this tremendous cu- riosity. It is a long voyage–as you know–from New York to Melbourne– and to my utter surprise the skeleton had no sooner got out to sea than he commenced eating in the most horrible manner. He had never been on the ocean before–and he said it agreed with him–I thought so!–I never saw a man eat so much in my life. Beef, mutton, pork–he swallowed them all like a shark–and between meals he was often discovered behind barrels eating hard-boiled eggs. The result was that, when we reached Melbourne, this infamous skeleton weighed sixty-four pounds more than I did!
I thought I was ruined–but I wasn’t. I took him on to California– another very long sea voyage–and when I got him to San Francisco I exhibited him as a fat man.
This story hasn’t anything to do with my entertainment, I know–but one of the principal features of my entertainment is that it contains so many things that don’t have anything to do with it.
JIM BLUDSO, OF THE PRAIRIE BELLE
By permission of, and by special arrangement with, Houghton Mifflin Company, authorized publishers of this author’s work.
BY JOHN HAY
Wall, no! I can’t tell whar he lives, Because he don’t live, you see;
Leastways, he’s got out of the habit Of livin’ like you and me.
Whar have you been for the last three year That you haven’t heard folks tell
How Jimmy Bludso passed in his checks The night of the “Prairie Belle”?
He weren’t no saint,–them engineers
Is all pretty much alike,–
One wife in Natchez-under-the-Hill
And another one here, in Pike;
A keerless man in his talk was Jim, And an awkward hand in a row,
But he never flunked, and he never lied,– I reckon he never knowed how.
And this was all the religion he had,– To treat his engine well;
Never be passed on the river;
To mind the pilot’s bell;
And if ever the “Prairie Belle” took fire,– A thousand times he swore,
He’d hold her nozzle agin the bank
Till the last soul got ashore.
All boats has their day on the Mississip, And her day come at last,–
The “Movastar” was a better boat,
But the “Belle” she _wouldn’t_ be passed. And so she come tearin’ along that night– The oldest craft on the line–
With a nigger squat on her safety valve, And her furnace crammed, rosin and pine.
The fire bust out as she cleared the bar, And burnt a hole in the night,
And quick as a flash she turned, and made For that willer-bank on the right.
There was runnin’ and cursing but Jim yelled out, Over all the infernal roar,
“I’ll hold her nozzle agin the bank Till the last galoot’s ashore.”
Through the hot, black breath of the burnin’ boat Jim Bludso’s voice was heard,
And they all had trust in his cussedness, And knowed he would keep his word.
And, sure’s you’re born, they all got off Afore the smokestacks fell,–
And Bludso’s ghost went up alone
In the smoke of the “Prairie Belle.”
He weren’t no saint,–but at jedgment I’d run my chance with Jim,
‘Longside of some pious gentlemen
That wouldn’t shake hands with him. He seen his duty, a dead-sure thing,–
And he went for it thar and then;
And Christ ain’t agoing to be too hard On a man that died for men.
THE TRIAL OF ABNER BARROW
From “The Boy Orator of Zepata City” in “The Exiles and Other Stories.” Copyrighted, 1894, Harper and Brothers. Reprinted with permission.
BY RICHARD HARDING DAVIS
Abe Barrow had been closely associated with the early history of Zepata; he had killed in his day several of the Zepata citizens. His fight with Thompson had been a fair fight–as those said who remembered it–and Thompson was a man they could well spare; but the case against Barrow had been prepared by the new and youthful district attorney, and the people were satisfied and grateful.
Harry Harvey, “The Boy Orator of Zepata City,” as he was called, turned slowly on his heels, and swept the court room carelessly with a glance of his clever black eyes. The moment was his.
“This man,” he said, and as he spoke even the wind in the corridors hushed for the moment, “is no part or parcel of Zepata city of to-day. He comes to us a relic of the past–a past that was full of hardships and glorious efforts in the face of daily disappointments, embitterments and rebuffs. But the part _this_ man played in that past lives only in the court records of that day. This man, Abe Barrow, enjoys, and has enjoyed, a reputation as a ‘bad man,’ a desperate and brutal ruffian. Free him to-day, and you set a premium on such reputations; acquit him of this crime, and you encourage others to like evil. Let him go, and he will walk the streets with a swagger, and boast that you were afraid to touch him–_afraid_, gentlemen–and children and women will point after him as the man who has sent nine others into eternity, and who yet walks the streets a free man. And he will become, in the eyes of the young and the weak, a hero and a god.
“For the last ten years, your honor, this man, Abner Barrow, has been serving a term of imprisonment in the state penitentiary; I ask you to send him back there again for the remainder of his life. Abe Barrow is out of date. This Rip Van Winkle of the past returns to find a city where he left a prairie town; a bank where he spun his roulette-wheel; this magnificent courthouse instead of a vigilance committee! He is there, in the prisoner’s pen, a convicted murderer and an unconvicted assassin, the last of his race,–the bullies and bad men of the border,–a thing to be forgotten and put away forever from the sight of men. And I ask you, gentlemen, to put him away where he will not hear the voice of man nor children’s laughter, nor see a woman’s smile. Bury him with the bitter past, with the lawlessness that has gone–that has gone, thank God–and which must not return.”
The district attorney sat down suddenly, and was conscious of nothing until the foreman pronounced the prisoner at the bar guilty of murder in the second degree.
Judge Truax leaned across his desk and said, simply, that it lay in his power to sentence the prisoner to not less than two years’ confinement in the state penitentiary, or for the remainder of his life.
“Before I deliver sentence on you, Abner Barrow,” he said with an old man’s kind severity, “is there anything you have to say on your own behalf?”
Barrow’s face was white with the prison tan, and pinched and hollow- eyed and worn. When he spoke his voice had the huskiness which comes from non-use, and cracked and broke like a child’s.
“I don’t know, Judge,” he said, “that I have anything to say in my own behalf. I guess what the gentleman said about me is all there is to say. I _am_ a back number, I _am_ out of date; I _was_ a loafer and a blackguard. He told you I had no part or parcel in this city, or in this world; that I belonged to the past; that I ought to be dead. Now that’s not so. I have just one thing that belongs to this city, and to this world–and to me; one thing that I couldn’t take to jail with me, and I’ll have to leave behind me when I go back to it. I mean my wife. You, sir, remember her, sir, when I married her twelve years ago. She gave up everything a woman ought to have, to come to me. She thought she was going to be happy with me; that’s why she come, I guess. Maybe she was happy for about two weeks. After that first two weeks her life, sir, was a hell, and I made it a hell. Respectable women wouldn’t speak to her because she was my wife–and she had no children. That was her life. She lived alone over the dance-hall, and sometimes when I was drunk–I beat her.
“At the end of two years I killed Welsh, and they sent me to the pen for ten years, and she was free. She could have gone back to her folks and got a divorce if she’d wanted to, and never seen me again. It was an escape most women’d gone down on their knees and thanked their Maker for.
“But what did this woman do–my wife, the woman I misused and beat and dragged down in the mud with me? She was too mighty proud to go back to her people, or to the friends who shook her when she was in trouble; and she sold out the place, and bought a ranch with the money, and worked it by herself, worked it day and night, until in ten years she had made herself an old woman, as you see she is to-day.
“And for what? To get _me_ free again; to bring _me_ things to eat in jail, and picture papers, and tobacco–when she was living on bacon and potatoes, and drinking alkali water–working to pay for a lawyer to fight for _me_–to pay for the _best_ lawyer.
“And what I want to ask of you, sir, is to let me have two years out of jail to show her how I feel about it. It’s all I’ve thought of when I was in jail, to be able to see her sitting in her own kitchen with her hands folded, and me working and sweating in the fields for her, working till every bone ached, trying to make it up to her.
“And I can’t, I can’t! It’s too late! It’s too late! Don’t send me back for life! Give me a few years to work for her–to show her what I feel here, what I never felt for her before. Look at her, gentlemen, look how worn she is, and poorly, and look at her hands, and you men must feel how I feel–I don’t ask you for myself. I don’t want to go free on my own account. My God! Judge, don’t bury me alive, as that man asked you to. Give me this last chance. Let me prove that what I’m saying is true.”
Judge Truax looked at the papers on his desk for some seconds, and raised his head, coughing as he did so.
“It lies–it lies at the discretion of this Court to sentence the prisoner to a term of imprisonment of two years, or for an indefinite period, or for life. Owing to–on account of certain circumstances which were–have arisen–this sentence is suspended. This Court stands adjourned.”
PART THREE
PLATFORM PRACTICE
THE SPEECH OF FORMAL OCCASION
THE BENEFITS OF A COLLEGE EDUCATION
From an address by the President to the students of Harvard University, at the announcement of Academic Distinctions, 1909
BY ABBOTT LAWRENCE LOWELL
This meeting is held not merely to honor the men who have won prizes, attained high rank, or achieved distinction in studies. In a larger sense it is a tribute paid by the University to the ideals of scholarship. It is a public confession of faith in the aims for which the University was established. We may, therefore, not inappropriately consider here the nature and significance of scholarship.
Without attempting an exhaustive catalogue of the benefits of education, we may note three distinct objects of college study. The first is the development of the mental powers with a view to their use in any subsequent career. In its broadest sense this may be called training for citizenship, for we must remember that good citizenship does not consist exclusively in rendering public service in political and philanthropic matters. It includes also conducting an industrial or professional career so as not to leave the public welfare out of sight.
Popular government is exacting. It implies that in some form every man shall voluntarily consecrate a part of his time and force to the state, and the better the citizen, the greater the effort he will make. On the function of colleges in fitting men for citizenship and for active work, much emphasis has been laid of late. Yet it is not the only aim of college studies. Another object is cultivation of the mind, refinement of taste, a development of the qualities that distinguish the civilized man from the barbarian. Nor does the value of these things lie in personal satisfaction alone. There is a culture that is selfish and exclusive, that is self-centered and conceited. The intellectual snob is quite as repellant as any other. But this is true of the moral distortion of all good qualities. The culture that narrows the sympathies, instead of enlarging them, has surely missed the object that should give its chief worth and dignity. The culture that reveals beauty in all its forms, that refines the sensibilities, and expands the mental horizon, that, without a sense of superiority, desires to share these things with others, and makes the lives of all men better worth living, is like the glow of fire in a cold room. It is a form of social service of a high order.
A third benefit of college education is the contact it affords with the work of creative imagination. The highest type of scholar is the creative scholar, just as the highest type of citizen is the statesman. The greatest figures in history, as almost every one will admit, are the thinkers and the rulers of men. People will always differ in the relative value they ascribe to these two supreme forms of human power. But if one may indulge in apocalyptic visions, I should prefer in another world to be worthy of the friendship of Aristotle rather than of Alexander, of Shakespeare or Newton than of Napoleon or Frederick the Great.
When I spoke of the benefit of college life in training for citizenship, and in imparting culture, I was obviously dealing with things which lie within the reach of every student; but in speaking of creative scholarship you may think that I am appealing only to the few men who have the rare gift of creative genius. But happily the progress of the world is not in the exclusive custody of the occasional men of genius. Great originality is, indeed, rare; but on a smaller scale it is not uncommon, and the same principles apply to the production of all creative work. The great scholar and the lesser intellectual lights differ in brilliancy, but the same process must be followed to bring them to their highest splendor. Nor is it the genius alone, or even the man of talent, who can enjoy and aid productive thought. It is not given to all men to possess creative scholarship themselves; but most men by following its footsteps can learn to respect it and feel its charm; and for any man who passes through college without doing so, college education has been in one of its most vital elements a failure. If he has not recognized the glowing imagination, the lofty ideals, the patience and the modesty, that characterize the true scholar, his time here has been spent, not perhaps without profit, but without inspiration.
All productive work is largely dependent upon appreciation by the community. The great painters of Italy would have been sterile had not the citizens of Florence been eager to carry Cimabue’s masterpiece in triumph through the streets. Kant would never have written among a people who despised philosophy; and the discoveries of our own day would have been impossible in an unscientific age. Every man who has learned to respect creative scholarship can enter into its spirit, and by respecting it he helps to foster it.
WHAT THE COLLEGE GIVES
From “Girls and Education,” a commencement address, Bryn Mawr College, 1911, by permission of, and by special arrangement with, Houghton Mifflin Company, authorized publishers of this author’s works.
BY LE BARON RUSSELL BRIGGS
One of the best gifts that a college can bestow is the power of taking a new point of view through putting ourselves into another’s place. To many students this comes hard, but come it must, as they hope to be saved.
To the American world the name of Charles Eliot Norton stands for all that is fastidious, even for what is over-fastidious; but Charles Eliot Norton’s collection of verse and prose called “The Heart of Oak Books” shows a catholicity which few of his critics could approach, a refined literary hospitality not less noteworthy than the refined human hospitality of his Christmas Eve at Shady Hill. As an old man this interpreter of Dante saw and hailed with delight the genius of Mr. Kipling. If you leave college without catholicity of taste, something is wrong either with the college or with you.
As in literature, so in life. The greatest teachers–even Christ himself–have taught nothing greater than the power of seeing with the eyes of another soul. “Browning,” said a woman who loves poetry, “seems to me not so much man as God.” For Browning, beyond all men in the past century, beyond nearly all men of all time, could throw himself into the person of another.
“God be thanked, the meanest of his creatures Boasts two soul-sides, one to face the world with, One to show a woman when he loves her,”
said this same great poet, writing to his wife. But Browning has as many soul-sides as humanity. Hence it has been truly called a new life, like conversion, or marriage, or the mystery of a great sorrow,–a change and a bracing change in our outlook on the whole world, to discover Browning. The college should be our Browning, revealing the motive power of every life, the poetry of good and bad. It is only the “little folk of little soul” who come out of college as the initiated members of an exclusive set. Justify yourself and your college years by your catholic democracy.
It is the duty of the college not to train only, but to inspire; to inspire not to learning only, but to a disciplined appreciation of the best in literature, in art, and in life, to a catholic taste, to a universal sympathy. It is the duty of the student to take the inspiration, to be not disobedient to the heavenly vision, but to justify four years of delight, by scholarship at once accurate and sympathetic, by a finer culture, by a leadership without self-seeking or pride, by a whole-souled democracy. How simple and how old it all is! Yet it is not so simple that any one man or woman has done it to perfection; nor so old that any one part of it fails to offer fresh problems and fresh stimulus to the most ambitious of you all.
Nothing is harder than to take freely and eagerly the best that is offered us, and never turn away to the pursuit of false gods. Now the best that is offered in college is the inspiration to learn, and having learned, to do:–
“Friends of the great, the high, the perilous years, Upon the brink of mighty things we stand– Of golden harvests and of silver tears, And griefs and pleasures that like grains of sand Gleam in the hourglass, yield their place and die.”
So said the college poet.
“Art without an ideal,” said a great woman, “is neither nature nor art. The question involves the whole difference between Phidias and Mme. Tussaud.” Let us never forget that the chief business of college teachers and college taught is the giving and receiving of ideals, and that the ideal is a burning and a shining light, not now only, or now and a year or two more, but for all time. What else is the patriot’s love of country, the philosopher’s love of truth, the poet’s love of beauty, the teacher’s love of learning, the good man’s love of an honest life, than keeping the ideal, not merely to look at, but to see by? In its light, and only in its light, the greatest things are done. Thus the ideal is not merely the most beautiful thing in the world; it is the source of all high efficiency. In every change, in every joy or sorrow that the coming years may bring, do you who graduate to-day remember that nothing is so practical as a noble ideal steadily and bravely pursued, and that now, as of old, it is the wise men who see and follow the guiding star.
MEMORIAL DAY ADDRESS
From “After-Dinner and Other Speeches,” with the permission of the author.
BY JOHN D. LONG
In memory of the dead, in honor of the living, for inspiration to our children, we gather to-day to deck the graves of our patriots with flowers, to pledge commonwealth and town and citizen to fresh recognition of the surviving soldier, and to picture yet again the romance, the reality, the glory, the sacrifice of his service. As if it were but yesterday, you recall him. He had but turned twenty. The exquisite tint of youthful health was in his cheek. His pure heart shone from frank, outspeaking eyes. His fair hair clustered from beneath his cap. He had pulled a stout oar in the college race, or walked the most graceful athlete on the village green. He had just entered on the vocation of his life. The doorway of his home at this season of the year was brilliant in the dewy morn with the clambering vine and fragrant flower, as in and out he went, the beloved of mother and sisters, and the ideal of a New England youth:–
“In face and shoulders like a god he was; For o’er him had the goddess breathed the charm Of youthful locks, the ruddy glow of youth, A generous gladness in his eyes: such grace As carver’s hand to ivory gives, or when Silver or Parian stone in yellow gold
Is set.”
And when the drum beat, when the first martyr’s blood sprinkled the stones of Baltimore, he took his place in the ranks and went forward. You remember his ingenuous and glowing letters to his mother, written as if his pen were dipped in his very heart. How novel seemed to him the routine of service, the life of camp and march! How eager the wish to meet the enemy and strike his first blow for the good cause! What pride at the promotion that came and put its chevron on his arm or its strap upon his shoulder!
They took him prisoner. He wasted in Libby and grew gaunt and haggard with the horror of his sufferings and with pity for the greater horror of the sufferings of his comrades who fainted and died at his side. He tunneled the earth and escaped. Hungry and weak, in terror of recapture, he followed by night the pathway of the railroad. He slept in thickets and sank in swamps. He saw the glitter of horsemen who pursued him. He knew the bloodhound was on his track. He reached the line; and, with his hand grasping at freedom, they caught and took him back to his captivity. He was exchanged at last; and you remember, when he came home on a short furlough, how manly and war-worn he had grown. But he soon returned to the ranks and to the welcome of his comrades. They recall him now alike with tears and pride. In the rifle pits around Petersburg you heard his steady voice and firm command. Some one