Chapter IV: Part 4

Then the different races and nations of men will stand, as it were in the presence of one another. They will know one another better. They will act and react upon one another. They may be moved by common sympathies and swayed by common interests. Thus the electric spark is the true Promethean fire, which is to kindle human hearts. Then will men learn that they are brethren, and that it is not less their interest than their duty to cultivate good-will and peace throughout all the earth.

* * * * *

EARLY CONNECTICUT

[Speech of David Dudley Field at a complimentary dinner given by the
Saturday Night Club to the judges of the Supreme Court, New York City,
April 5, 1890. Clark Bell, President of the Club, said in the course
of his introductory remarks: "It is our grand good fortune to have
with us to-night the Nestor of the American bar, who was born in
Connecticut, and whose useful life has covered nearly all the years of
our present century. His eye has seen much that is far in the past,
and beside that love and affection he bears to his birthplace are the
reminiscences of the men conspicuous in the judicial annals of his
native State, who have been upon the stage of action during the
eventful years of the present century. When we shall have separated,
when this banquet shall be but a memory and a reminiscence, that which
will give us most pleasure, the reminiscence we shall prize among the
highest, will be that of the presence of the Hon. David Dudley Field,
whose illustrious name I will connect with the toast--'Reminiscences
of the Bench and Bar of Connecticut'"]

MR. PRESIDENT:--When you did me the honor to invite me to this banquet, I was quick to accept the invitation, because I expected to meet the judges of my native State, of which I bear so pleasant a remembrance. I find, however, representatives from other seats of justice come to greet the judges of Connecticut. You have here a judge from the Dominion of Canada, over which shines the mild light of Arcturus, and on the other side a representative from Texas where glows, not the Lone Star of other days, but the bright constellation of the Southern Cross. You have judges from the neighboring State of New Jersey, from the further State of Pennsylvania, and from Delaware, about which I may use the language of John Quincy Adams, speaking of Rhode Island: "She is to be measured, not by the smallness of her stature, but by the loftiness of her principles." All these eminent judges are here to join in the salutation to the judges of Connecticut, and to them therefore our attention is to be chiefly directed.

I am old enough to remember the judges of Connecticut when they sat under the authority of the Colonial charter, that charter which was hidden in the famous oak of Hartford to escape seizure by an emissary of the King of England. I was present at the trial in Haddam, my native town, of a man for murder. Trumbull was the judge, that Trumbull who wrote "McFingal," and who, being elected for a single year, as was then the rule, was re-elected as long as he lived. He was neatly dressed, wearing ruffles in the bosom, and at the wrists, and was in trim knee-breeches.

I remember this incident of the trial. The crowd was so great that the court was adjourned from the court house to the church, then called the meeting-house. The jurors sat in the square pews. One of the jurors, a respectable farmer of the neighborhood, thinking that he had detected some mistake of the counsel rose to correct him, when the counsel retorted that the juror was the one mistaken, and added: "Let him that thinketh he standeth take heed lest he fall." The prisoner was convicted and was hanged at Middletown. I went up to see the execution, and when I reached the place trained bands were marching through the streets, playing their music as if for a great festivity. A sermon was preached to a crowded house, and the prisoner was then taken, dressed in a shroud, to a hill near by, and in the presence of thousands of spectators was executed. These scenes were of course impressed strongly on the memory of a boy. I remember the session of the county court at Haddam, when the judges, headed by the sheriff, marched in order from the tavern to the court house. I remember seeing in court David Daggett, wearing white top boots, and I met Roger Minot Sherman, driving into the village in a sulky. I remember Staples and Hungerford. The latter went into court one day with a Bible under his arm, to show from the first chapter of Genesis, as authority in an insurance case, that the day began at sunset, "and the evening and the morning were the first day."

In those days party feeling ran high in Connecticut, between the Democrats and the Federalists--"Demos" and "Feds," as they were called for shortness--and contempt as well. Let me recount two anecdotes: The Rev. Dr. Backus, riding along the highway, stopped at a brook to water his horse, when another rider came up from the opposite side, and thus addressed the good man: "Good-morning, Mr. Minister." The latter replied, "Good-morning, Mr. Democrat. How did you know that I was a minister?" "By your dress. How did you know that I was a Democrat?" "By your address."

At another time Dr. Backus, being prosecuted for a libel upon Mr. Jefferson, was taken from his home to Hartford to be bailed. The minister and the marshal rode of course, for that was not the heyday of vehicles. The minister rode very fast, so fast that the marshal called out after him: "Dr. Backus, Dr. Backus, you ride as if the devil were after you." The Doctor turning his head replied, "Just so!"

Mr. President, Connecticut has been often abused for the frugality and thrift of its people, and called in derision the Nutmeg State. I remember hearing that a New Yorker once put into his will an injunction against any child of his being educated in Connecticut.

An Episcopal clergyman removing from New York into a Connecticut town was actually boycotted. The people would not sell him anything to eat, and I believe he returned for food and shelter to the hither side of Byram River. I remember such a joke as this current in New York; that they had a singular habit in Connecticut, when a man cast up his accounts with his neighbor and gave him a note for the balance, he used to exclaim: "Thank God, that debt is paid." Some of the people have singular tastes now and then; as for example there is a hill behind East Haddam that used to be called "Stagger-all-hill," but inquiring the other day, I was told its name was now "Mount Parnassus."

They may say all these things if they please, but Connecticut has no public debt, or a very small one at most, and her people are industrious, educated, polite to strangers, jealous of their rights and brave enough to defend them. I remember hearing Mrs. Fanny Kemble say, some years ago, of the twelve hundred thousand people then inhabiting Massachusetts, that, taking them all in all, she thought they were the foremost twelve hundred thousand people living together in the world, and I can speak in similar terms of the inhabitants of Connecticut, as really a part of the same people.

In conclusion, Mr. President, may I without affectation utter these words of love for my native State, its scenery and its people. Flow on, gentle river, shine on, rugged and wooded hills, smile on, green meadows basking in the sun, and you, brave people, who dwell amid these scenes, prove yourselves ever worthy of your progenitors, and flaunt high as you will, the old banner with its hopeful and trustful motto--_qui transtulit sustinet_.

FRANCIS M. FINCH

THE OFFICE OF THE LAW

[Speech of Francis M. Finch on assuming the chair of the President of
the New York State Bar Association, at their annual dinner, Albany,
N. Y., January 17, 1900. The ex-President, Walter J. Logan, introduced
him in the following words: "Before I introduce to you Judge Finch, I
want to say just one word for myself. The New York State Bar
Association has treated me with distinguished consideration, and I
shall ever regard every member of the Association as my personal
friend, and among the pleasantest experiences of my life, which I am
only just commencing, that the lawyers of the State of New York
thought me worthy of the position which I am now surrendering. Allow
me to introduce to you Judge Finch. [Applause.] I want to introduce to
you, Judge Finch, the most splendid body of men in the American
nation,--the New York State Bar Association. Judge Finch is now
President."]

GENTLEMEN:--I regard it as a very great honor to be called upon to preside over the work of this Association for the coming year. I do not know of any other temptation which would have drawn me away from the quiet of my ordinary life into an arena so public and so open to critical observation. It is entirely natural that one who has crossed the line of threescore and ten should covet a life of rest, or at least some restful work which makes no heavy demand upon brain and nerves, but I have received from the Bar of the State of New York, in the years that have gone by, and which seem to me now almost like a dream, I have received at their hands so much kindness and courtesy, so much of that encouragement and generous approval which makes the hardest work a pleasure and happiness, that it seemed to me almost ungrateful and ungracious to refuse the duty which was sought to be imposed upon me, and so I have surrendered, with such grace as I may, and will endeavor, to the best of my ability, to push forward the work of this Association. [Applause.]

Indeed, gentlemen, I confess, as over our cups confessions are sometimes excusable and in order--I confess that it is something of a comfort not to be quite forgotten. [Applause.] It is the lot of the average judge--I don't mean by that these old associates of mine, sitting by me, who are a long way above the average [applause]--it is the lot of the average judge to disappear from the public memory very soon after his work is done. Occasionally there is one who makes his appearance in the flush of some new and remarkable era, and fastens his name to its beginning. Occasionally there are others who do some excellent work, not altogether judicial, and in that manner keep their memories alive; but the most of us, when our work is done, step down into the mist and the darkness of a very swift and prompt oblivion. And if you, gentlemen of the Bar, have chosen for me to draw back the curtains a little, to dissipate somewhat the mist and the darkness, it is just like you; it is only another of those kindly deeds which it is pleasant to remember, and for which I am grateful, and glad to have the opportunity of saying so. [Applause.]

I wished to confine what I have to say to-night simply to these words of acknowledgment, but the thought comes to me, and I think I must give it expression, that there never was a year in the history of this nation when the work of the intelligent, of the able and of the scholarly lawyer was more imperatively demanded in the interest of the nation and of the race, than this year which now opens before us. [Applause.] I have long been of the conviction that the law never leads civilization, but always follows in its wake; that its purpose and its object is to regulate and control the relations of men with each other, and their relations to the State; but those relations must first come, must first be established before there is anything for the law to regulate. Progress goes on; new inventions are made; new relations between men occur, and it is the office and the purpose of the law to march behind them, to regulate and order and systematize them, and produce, if need be, justice out of injustice; and to-day beyond the questions of taxation, which are an almost insoluble problem, we have already the beginnings in the metropolis of the State of an underground railway, likely to open and introduce questions as difficult and as remarkable as those which attended the elevated railways. We have a mass of colossal trusts, as they are called, combinations of capital, in an extraordinary degree, with which some of you have already been wrestling, and others of you will be called upon to confront or defend. Beyond that the student of international law is about to be obliged to look away from home and reconsider his foundations, to reflect anew upon the conclusions to which he has come in the application of the questions of what is contraband and what is not in the light of an extending commerce. Beyond that, again, and what interested me, perhaps, more than it may you, I saw the other day in one of our leading city journals, a statement which I have been able to verify, that the German nation on the first day of January in this year, set in operation a new Prussian code, which substituted for the civil law and the Latin doctrine the Teutonic law of Germany. I myself cannot read the German language; but, if there are some among you, within the sound of my voice, who are capable of doing that, I set you the task between now and one year from to-day of studying and examining that new Prussian code, which must be a marked departure, and giving us the benefit of your knowledge and your judgment. And, beyond that still, the nation itself stands to-day at the parting of the ways; stands to-day upon the verge of a new and most unexpected and remarkable destiny, and, I repeat, that there never was, I think, there never will be, gentlemen, another year in which the labor and the study and the thought of the scholarly and intelligent and learned lawyer could be more needed or more in demand. [Applause.]

Let me add one word, not quite so serious, and that, with reference to my friend who has been your President during the past year, and who, for his patient industry in your behalf, for the manner in which he has conducted your affairs and looked after your interests, deserves the thanks of this Association, which, in your name and behalf, I venture to give him. [Applause.] What I want to say, however, outside of that, is a little bit in the line of complaint. He has undertaken to take away from me my surplus over and above ten millions of dollars [laughter], and give it to the State of New York. He says in justification that he thinks and believes that it would be for the best, but, with all deference to his opinion, I venture to say that I would rather trust my children to spend that surplus than the average legislature. [Laughter.] More than that, and the suggestion will relieve my friend somewhat, I do not intend to have any surplus over his ten millions, not if I know it. When I reach that happy point, and find that my inventory is running above it, I propose quietly to take that surplus and hand it over, first, on one side, and then on the other, to my children, and that beautiful inheritance law of his will have no application to me whatever. [Laughter.] Nevertheless, while I disagree with him about those things, and think I see my way out of the difficulty, I pardon all of it, because he has promised me faithfully on his honor that until the close of the festivities he would remain your President, and when in the end he bade you good-night he would do it for me, as well as for himself, and wish you each and all a happy journey to your homes and a safe return to these same tables one year from to-day. [Applause.]

JOHN FOORD

THE LAND O' CAKES

[Speech of John Foord at the 143d annual banquet of the St. Andrew's
Society of the State of New York, December 1, 1899. The speech was
delivered in response to the toast, "The Land O' Cakes."]

MR. PRESIDENT, MEMBERS AND GUESTS OF THE ST. ANDREW'S SOCIETY:--I suppose there are some in this company who would find it hard to tell the difference between a bear bannock and a pease scone. For the benefit of such, I may be permitted to say that there was no suggestion of fancy bread about the "cakes" with which the name of Scotland has been associated. They were very plain bread, indeed, and quite as destitute of leaven as that which the Children of Israel were condemned to eat in the wilderness. The only sweetening they had came from the fact that they were the fruit of honest toil; and hunger, as you know, is "gude kitchen." Together with the "hale-some parritch, chief o' Scotia's food," they formed the staff of life of a people whose tastes were as simple as their ideals were high. "We cultivate literature on a little oatmeal," was the motto proposed by Sydney Smith for the "Edinburgh Review"; and, jocular as was the suggestion, it touches the keynote of Scottish character and history. For, what have we not done on a little oatmeal? Our fathers fought on it, worked on it, thought and studied on it, wrote ballads and preached sermons on it, and created the Scotland, kinship with which we are all so proud to claim, on a diet chiefly composed of oat cakes and oatmeal porridge. On such frugal fare, they subdued a harsh and stubborn soil and made it yield its yearly toll of harvest; they took tribute of wool and mutton from the moorland and the hillside, and of hide and beef from the fallow lea; they levied on loch and sea to support their fisher-folk; and kept the rock and the reel and the flying shuttle busy to clothe themselves with homespun, so that the old Arbroath toast became a very epitome of the vocations of that primitive time: "The life o' man, the death o' fish, the shuttle, and the plough; corn, horn, linen, yarn, lint, and tarry 'oo." Nay more, defying the rigors of an ungenial climate, they set themselves, in their dour and stubborn way, to make flowers grow where Nature never intended such flowers to be; and they became so cunning in the mystery of Adam's art that the Scottish gardener took the place of direction wherever men laid out flower-beds or built greenhouses throughout the civilized world.

On such simple lines of industry were laid the foundations of the material greatness of Scotland--its mines, its furnaces, its machine shops, its shipyards, its flax and jute mills, and all the other forms of productive energy that have placed this little country and its few millions of people in the front rank of the mechanical activity of the world. But is it because of such triumphs as these that the name of Scotland appeals so powerfully to the heart and the imagination of men? I think not. Had our race been distinguished only for its care of the bawbees, for its indomitable perseverance, its capacity to endure hardship, its adaptiveness, and its enterprise, I trow that the passionate pilgrim would not turn so eagerly to Scotland to cull the flowers of poesy and breathe the air of romance. And remember, our Scottish people are rather what the country has made them, than the country is what it has been made by them. I heard Governor Roosevelt say the other evening that the State of New York was merely another name for the aggregate of the people in it, and I could not help thinking that there must be in the Dutch blood a certain deficiency of imagination. Can you imagine a Scotsman, however matter-of-fact and commonplace, offering such a definition of his native land? The land of brown heath and shaggy wood, land of the mountain and the flood, the land of our sires, must be, indeed, part of ourselves; but it is also something beyond and above ourselves,--the cradle of memories that will fade only with our latest breath, the home of traditions, whose spell we could not, if we would, shake off, the seat of beauty and of grandeur that we somehow think are finer than the fairest or sublimest scenes that earth can show. We know the feeling that prompted Byron to say:--

"When I see some tall rock lift its head to the sky,
Then I think of the hills that o'ershadow Culbean."

For, to most of us, in all our intercourse with Nature, the Scottish mind supplies a Scottish background. There is nothing that affects me quite so powerfully as a fine sunset; but I confess that, from all the magnificent sunsets that I have seen between the Palisades and the Rocky Mountains, I have derived no such emotion as I have felt when, "gathering his glory for a grand repose," the sun set behind the Grampians; and the peak of Schehallion, like a spearhead, cleft the evening sky. Why, the Scottish exile thinks that the sun turns a kindlier face to his native land than it does to countries less favored, like the one who sang:--

"The sun rises bright in France,
And fair sets he;
But he's tint the blythe blink he had
In my ain countrie."

We are what we are, gentlemen, because the land of our birth is "Bonnie Scotland," as well as the "Land o' Cakes." Its beauty has entered into our blood; its majesty and sublimity have given us a certain elevation of soul. Thus it came about that, beside the homely kailyard virtues of our forefathers, and their stern uncompromising religious zeal, there grew up in all their wild beauty such a profusion of the flowers of song, of poetry, and of romance that you shall hardly find between Tweed's silver stream and where the ocean billows break in thunder on Cape Wrath, ten square miles of Scottish ground which have not been celebrated in ballad, legend, song or story. Whence, think you, came that affluence of melody with which every strath and glen and carse of Scotland was vocal--melody that auld wives crooned at their spinning wheel: lasses lilted at ewe-milking, before the dawn of day; fiddlers played at weddings and christenings; and pipers sent echoing among the hills to inspire the march of the warlike living or sound a lament for the heroic dead? A long line of nameless Scottish minstrels had lived and died generations before Burns and Ferguson, Tannahill and Lady Nairne, and all the rest of our sweet singers took the old tunes and gave them a form and vesture as immortal as their own fame. We are called a practical, hard-headed people, and so we are; but the most enduring part of our literature tells of the romantic ideals that Scotsmen have cherished and the chivalrous deeds they have done. We are thought to be severely logical; and if allowance be made for our point of view, we are that also. But the unsympathetic student of Scottish history will not get very far with his subject by keeping steadily in mind our practicalness and our logic. If he thinks of these alone, he will be apt to pronounce those Scotsmen fools who sacrificed two centuries of progress for the barren, if glorious, privilege of national independence; he will think they must have been pure fanatics who spilt their blood that they might have Christ's Kirk and Covenant regulated in their own peculiar way; and he will hold them as mere feather-brains who sacrificed their lands and their lives to an obstinate loyalty to the House of Stuart. Yet it is of such unreason, if unreason it be, that the warp and the woof of the historic annals of Scotland have been spun: it is this defiance of what the utilitarian philosopher calls the rules of common sense, as applied to human conduct, that has given the Scottish race their unique position among the tribes of men.

And, even in this age of steam and electricity, they will still cherish their romance. It was but the other day that there was pointed out to the Gordon Highlanders in the Transvaal the expediency of exchanging the garb of old Gaul for a uniform of khaki: the one would be less of a shining mark for the enemy than the other, and, its adoption would probably result in saving many lives. You know their decision. I think I hear them say, "All this may well be true; but we stand by the kilt and the tartan." That, a critical world may say, is magnificent, but it is not war. We say, magnificent or not, it is war; for the kilt and the tartan are inseparable from the sentiment that makes these men the redoubtable soldiers they are. Take those away, and you break their touch with a continuous tradition which transforms every man in the regiment, be he Scottish, English or Irish, into a Gordon, with all the dash and vim and dare-devil courage that centre around the name. The Gordon blood in him helped Byron to understand and express the potency of the Highland tradition:--

"But, with the breath that fills Their mountain pipe, so fill the mountaineers With the fierce native daring which instills The stirring memories of a thousand years. And Evan's, Donald's fame rings in each clansman's ears."

May there never come a time when the mind of our race will be closed against such a sentiment as that! Let us go on doing our share, resolutely, faithfully, conscientiously, of the work of the world; let us keep well to the front with the same success that we have done of yore; but let us not forget that we owe the unconquerable spirit in us to our Auld Mither Scotland, that it is from her breast there has been drawn the celestial ichor which has nourished genius in the cottage as generously as in the Hall, and that has made the inheritance of the ploughman's son more precious than a Dukedom. We shall, as your President has said, be better, and not worse citizens of this great Republic; we shall play our part all the more worthily, in public or private station, if every fibre of our being thrills to an auld Scotch sang, and we feel in our inmost heart that--

"Where the caller breezes sweep
Across the mountain's breast,
Where the free in soul are nurst,
Is the land that we lo'e best."

SIMEON FORD

ME AND SIR HENRY

[Speech of Simeon Ford at a banquet given to Sir Henry Irving by the
Lotos Club, New York City, October 29, 1899. The President, Frank R.
Lawrence, occupied the chair.]

GENTLEMEN:--I cannot but envy you the intellectual treat in which you are revelling, in being permitted to listen to the resistless eloquence of both me and Sir Henry Irving. It is not often that two such stars as me and Sir Henry will consent to twinkle in the same firmament. But your gifted President can accomplish wonders. He is what Weber and Fields[3] call a "hypnotister."

As the President has said, I am not one of the set speakers. I just blew in here, and blew in my good money to attend this feast, like the rest of the rank and file, and now I have to work my passage as well. I am simply put in as a filler. The President, with his awe-inspiring, chill-producing gavel, is the "wrapper," and I am the filler; and you, who smoke, have observed ere this that a mighty fine wrapper is often associated with a very rank filler.

If I had had about twenty minutes' warning I could have prepared a eulogy on Sir Henry, setting forth his virtues as a man and an actor in such a way that he never would have recognized himself, and with such eloquence that Dr. Greer [David H. Greer] would have looked like thirty cents. But I did not get the twenty minutes, so poor Sir Henry must content himself with the few scant bouquets with which he has already been bombarded.

A sober, able-bodied eulogizer with a good address and a boiled shirt can get a pretty steady winter's job in this Club at board wages. I have, in my poor, weak way, eulogized several distinguished men in this historic room, all of whom I am happy to say, are now convalescent. I eulogized Joe Choate and he got a job at the Court of St. James; I eulogized Horace Porter, and he is now playing one night stands at the Moulin Rouge; Dr. Depew, and he not only got sent to Washington, but got a raise of wages at the Grand Central Depot; yet when I saw him the next day and delicately intimated that I was yearning to view the scenic beauty of his great four track system, his reception reminded me of the lines of Longfellow, beginning--

"Try not the pass, the old man said
Dark lowers the tempest overhead."

and so, instead of resting that night on a beautiful Wagner hair-mattress, I had to be content with "excelsior."

The only man who really appreciated my efforts was dear old Joe Jefferson. When I gave him to understand that I was anxious to see him in one of his matchless characterizations, he inquired if I had a family that shared my anxiety, and when informed that I had, he generously tendered all hands a pass to the family circle. The Lord loves a cheerful giver, but the Lord help any one who strikes Joe for a free pass.

I can understand that the life of an actor must be a trying one, and success difficult to achieve, and it must be a source of great gratification to Sir Henry to feel that he has done so much to elevate the stage as well as the price of admission. But he deserves success, and the last time I gave up three dollars to behold him, and afterwards, with a lot of enthusiasts, took his horses from his carriage and dragged him in triumph two miles to his hotel, I really felt that I had had a run for my money.

But if, Sir Henry, in gratitude for this beautiful tribute which I have just paid you, you should feel tempted to reciprocate by taking my horses from my carriage and dragging me in triumph through the streets, I beg that you will restrain yourself for two reasons. The first reason is--I have no horses; the second is--I have no carriage.

* * * * *

A RUN ON THE BANKER

[Speech of Simeon Ford at the Annual dinner of the Manhattan Bankers of
the New York State Bankers' Association, February 7, 1900. The
President, Warner Van Norden, presided.]

GENTLEMEN:--As I sat here this evening, listening to the strains of that fine old Bankers' anthem entitled "When you ain't got no money, why you needn't come around," I was thinking what a grand idea it was for you magnates to get together once a year to exchange ideas and settle among yourselves what shall be done, and who shall be done, and how you will do them. Personally, I'd prefer to exchange cheques rather than ideas with many here present; not but what the ideas are all right, but somehow, when money talks I am always a fascinated listener.

I did not come here voluntarily, but at the pressing invitation of some of my most pressing creditors on your committee. They said Secretary Gage would be here, and Mr. J. P. Morgan, and that without my presence the affair would seem incomplete, but that if we three got together we could settle various perplexing financial problems right on the spot. The committee told me to choose my own subject and they would endorse anything I would say--without recourse. They delicately intimated, however, that any playful allusions to the City Bank better be left unsaid; and so I can only remark:--

"And I would that my tongue could utter,
The thoughts that arise in me!"

and let it go at that.

I must say, however, that Secretary Gage made one serious mistake. If he had consulted me (which he never did, although he had abundant opportunity) I would have advised him to put his money in an institution I know about where it would have received a rousing welcome and where I could have taken a fall out of it myself. If the price of the Custom-House had gotten into my hands, and I'd been given twenty-four hours' start, I believe I could have given the secretary a run for his money. But, instead, he placed it in a rich, smooth-running, well-oiled institution where it was used in averting a panic and straightening out financial tangles, and greasing the wheels of commerce, and similar foolishness.

This is the first opportunity I have had of meeting you Bank Presidents collectively, and when you are thawed out. I have met most of you, individually, when you were frozen stiff. I never supposed you could warm up, as you seem to have done, my previous impressions having been of the "How'd you like to be the iceman" order. Sometimes I have thought I'd almost rather go without the money than get a congestive chill in a Bank President's office, and have him gaze into my eyes, and read the inmost secrets of my soul, and ask unfeeling questions, and pry rudely into my past, and throw out wild suggestions about getting Mr. Astor to endorse for me, and other similar atrocities. And even if I succeed in deceiving him he leads me, crushed, humiliated and feeling like thirty cents, to a fly cashier, who, taking advantage of my dazed condition, includes in my three-months' note, not only Christmas and the Fourth of July, but St. Patrick's Day, Ash Wednesday and sixteen Sundays, so that, by the time he has deducted the interest, what's coming to me looks like a Jaeger undershirt after its first interview with an African _blanchisseuse_. That's the kind of thing the poet had in mind when he wrote--"I know a bank whereon the wild thyme grows."

I have observed that one's reception at a bank varies somewhat with the condition of the money market. Go in when money is easy and the President falls on your neck, calls you by your first name, and cheerfully loans you large sums on your "Balloon Common" and your "Smoke Preferred," and you go on your way rejoicing. The next day, news having arrived that a Gordon Highlander has strained a tendon in his leg while sprinting away from a Dutchman near Ladysmith, or an Irish lady _chef_ has sent home two pounds sterling to her family, money goes up to one hundred and eighty per cent. a minute, and you get a note requesting you to remove your "Balloon Common" and your "Smoke Preferred" and substitute Government Bonds therefor. And still you wonder at crime.

But if you really want to know the meaning of the terms "Marble Heart" and "Icy Eye" go into one of these refrigerating plants for a loan when money is tight. It is prudent at such times to wear ear-muffs and red mittens fastened together by tape so they can't be lost, for you will need 'em.

As soon as you reach the outer air--which will be in about a second--run home and plunge the extremities in hot water, and place a porous plaster on what remains of your self-esteem.

Bankers are too prone to judge a man by his appearance, so that the very men who need the money most have the hardest work to get it. They are apt, especially at the City Bank, to discriminate against the "feller" who looks rocky, in favor of the Rockafeller. Clothes do not make the man! If they did, Hetty Green wouldn't be where she is and Russell Sage would be in the Old Ladies' Home. If Uncle Russell had to travel on his shape, he never would see much of the world. Yet, beneath that ragged coat there beats a heart which as a beater can't be beat--a heart as true (so the Standard Gas people say)--as true as "steal."

But after all, Banks and Trust Companies do a lot of good in a quiet way, especially to their directors--in a quiet way. See what a convenience some of our Trust Companies have been to their directors of late. It would sometimes be mortifying for these directors to have to attempt to borrow money on certain securities, in institutions with which they were not connected, because, instead of getting the money, they might get six months.

I had intended to touch upon a few vital questions concerning finance this evening, but the night is waning and I guess you've all been "touched" sufficiently of late, so I will restrain myself, and give some other orator a chance to get himself disliked.

JAMES ANTHONY FROUDE

MEN OF LETTERS

[Speech of James A. Froude at the banquet of the Royal Academy, London,
April 29, 1876. The President, Sir Francis Grant, in introducing Mr.
Froude, said: "The next toast is 'The Interests of Literature and
Science.' This toast is always so welcome and so highly appreciated
that it needs no exordium from the chair. I cannot associate with the
interests of literature a name more worthy than that of Mr. Froude,
the scholar and distinguished historian."]

SIR FRANCIS GRANT, YOUR ROYAL HIGHNESSES, MY LORDS, AND GENTLEMEN:--While I feel most keenly the honor which you confer upon me in connecting my name with the interests of literature, I am embarrassed, in responding, by the nature of my subject. What is literature, and who are men of letters? From one point of view we are the most unprofitable of mankind--engaged mostly in blowing soap-bubbles. [Laughter.] From another point of view we are the most practical and energetic portion of the community. [Cheers.] If literature be the art of employing words skillfully in representing facts, or thoughts, or emotions, you may see excellent specimens of it every day in the advertisements in our newspapers. Every man who uses a pen to convey his meaning to others--the man of science, the man of business, the member of a learned profession--belongs to the community of letters. Nay, he need not use his pen at all. The speeches of great orators are among the most treasured features of any national literature. The orations of Mr. Grattan are the text-books in the schools of rhetoric in the United States. Mr. Bright, under this aspect of him, holds a foremost place among the men of letters of England. [Cheers.]

Again, sir, every eminent man, be he what he will, be he as unbookish as he pleases, so he is only eminent enough, so he holds a conspicuous place in the eyes of his countrymen, potentially belongs to us, and if not in life, then after he is gone, will be enrolled among us. The public insist on being admitted to his history, and their curiosity will not go unsatisfied. [Cheers.] His letters are hunted up, his journals are sifted; his sayings in conversation, the doggerel which he writes to his brothers and sisters are collected, and stereotyped in print. [Laughter.] His fate overtakes him. He cannot escape from it. We cry out, but it does not appear that men sincerely resist the liberty which is taken with them. We never hear of them instructing their executors to burn their papers. [Laughter.] They have enjoyed so much the exhibition that has been made of their contemporaries that they consent to be sacrificed themselves.

Again, sir, when we look for those who have been most distinguished as men of letters, in the usual sense of the word; where do we find them? The famous lawyer is found in his chambers, the famous artist is found in his studio. Our foremost representatives we do not find always in their libraries; we find them, in the first place, in the service of their country. ["Hear! Hear!"] Owen Meredith is Viceroy of India, and all England has applauded the judgment that selected and sent him there. [Cheers.] The right honorable gentleman [Mr. Gladstone] who three years ago was conducting the administration of this country with such brilliant success was first generally known to his countrymen as a remarkable writer. During forty years of arduous service he never wholly deserted his original calling. ["Hear! Hear!"] He is employing an interval of temporary retirement to become the interpreter of Homer to the English race [cheers], or to break a lance with the most renowned theologians in defence of spiritual liberty. [Cheers.]

A great author, whose life we have been all lately reading with delight, contemplates the year 3000 as a period at which his works may still be studied. If any man might be led reasonably to form such an anticipation for himself by the admiration of his contemporaries, Lord Macaulay may be acquitted of vanity. The year 3000 is far away, much will happen between now and then; all that we can say with certainty of the year 3000 is that it will be something extremely different from what any one expects. I will not predict that men will then be reading Lord Macaulay's "History of England." I will not predict that they will then be reading "Lothair." [Laughter.] But this I will say, that if any statesman of the age of Augustus or the Antonines had left us a picture of patrician society at Rome, drawn with the same skill, and with the same delicate irony with which Mr. Disraeli has described a part of English society in "Lothair," no relic of antiquity would now be devoured with more avidity and interest. [Loud cheers.] Thus, sir, we are an anomalous body, with very ill-defined limits. But, such as we are, we are heartily obliged to you for wishing us well, and I give you our most sincere thanks. [Cheers.]

MELVILLE WESTON FULLER

THE SUPREME COURT

[Speech of Melville W. Fuller at the fifth annual dinner of the New
England Society of Pennsylvania, Philadelphia, December 22, 1888. The
President, Heman L. Wayland, D.D., said in introducing Justice
Fuller:--"The reverence of New England for law and her readiness to
make law (a readiness, perhaps our enemies will say, to make them for
other people) naturally suggests the topic which is first on the
programme--'New England in the Supreme Court.' I shall not enlarge
upon the sentiment, lest I should only mar the canvas which will
shortly be illumined by the hand of a master. The case of New England
versus The World has long been in court; the evidence is in; the
learned counsel have been heard; and now, before the case is finally
given to the intelligent jury of the human race, it remains only that
we hear a charge from his honor, the Chief Justice of the United
States."]

MR. PRESIDENT AND GENTLEMEN OF THE NEW ENGLAND SOCIETY:--I thank you sincerely for the courtesy which has afforded me the opportunity of being with you this evening, and am deeply sensible of the compliment paid in the request to respond to the sentiment just given.

We all know--we have heard over and over again--that the "Day We Celebrate" commemorates an emigration peculiar in its causes. It was not the desire to acquire wealth or power, nor even the spirit of adventure, that sent these colonists forth. They did not go to return, but to abide; and while they sought to make another country theirs, primarily to enjoy religious independence, they were much too sagacious not to know that emancipation from the ecclesiastical thraldom, of which they complained, involved the attainment of political rights and immunities as well. And so this day commemorates not simply the heroism of struggle and endurance in silence and apart, for a great cause, not simply the unfeigned faith which rendered such heroism possible, but the planting of that germ of local self-government which has borne glorious fruit in the reconcilement of individual freedom with a national sway of imperial proportions.

It commemorates the advent of that first written constitution of civil government, that first attempt of a people in that form, by self-imposed fundamental law, to put it out of their own power to work injustice; that agreement, signed upon the sea, "to enact, constitute and frame such just and equal laws and ordinances, acts, constitutions and offices," as should be "thought most meet and convenient for the general good of the colony," to which all "due submission and obedience" was promised. And this was followed a few years later in the sister colony of Massachusetts Bay by that "Body of Liberties" which, it is well said, may challenge comparison with Magna Charta itself or the latest Bill of Rights. Instinct with the spirit of common law, though somewhat ameliorating its rigor, these "rites, privileges and liberties," to be "impartially and inviolably enjoyed and observed throughout our jurisdiction forever," commence with the preamble that "the free fruition of such liberties, Immunities and privileges humanitie, Civilitie and Christianitie call for as due to every man in his place and proportion without impeachment and Infringement, hath ever been and ever will be the tranquillitie and Stabilitie of Churches and Commonwealths. And the deniall and deprivall thereof, the disturbance. If not the ruine of both. We hould it therefore our dutie and saftie, whilst we are about the further establishment of this Government, to collect and expresse all such freedomes as for present we foresee may concern us, and our posteritie after us."

And so they ordain that no man's life or liberty or property can be taken away, or his honor or good name stained, or his goods or estate in any way damaged under color of law or countenance of authority, unless by due process; that every person, inhabitant or foreign, shall enjoy the same justice and law general to the plantation; that there shall be no monopolies, except for new inventions profitable to the country, and for a short time; no imprisonment without bail except for crimes capital and contempts in open court; freedom of alienation and power to devise; no primogeniture, no escheats on attainder and execution for felony; succor to those fleeing from tyranny; full freedom to advise, vote, give verdict or sentence according to true judgment and conscience; in short, the expression or the indication of those safeguards to liberty, the possession of which enables a people to become and to remain free.

Well may we claim for these documents large influence in forerunning the organic laws of the several States, and that matchless instrument which a century ago was framed in this fortunate city, which had been blessed before as the place where the Declaration put on immortality.

And now in the latter half of the third century, since the bearers of the underlying principles of Republican rule placed their feet upon that rock, whose shadow was to become a solace to the weariness of the perpetual toils and encounters of the land, we may well hope that what they sought has been achieved, an enduring Government of laws and not of men; security to freedom and to justice, "justice, that venerable virtue, without which," as exclaimed New England's eloquent orator, "freedom, valor and power are but vulgar things."

It is delightful to keep these remembrances alive, and while duly recognizing the rightful claims of all our brothers to their share in the foundation of the institutions of a common country, to dwell upon what the forefathers were, what they accomplished and what they still accomplish through the works that follow them. And as it is not unnatural that at the same time we should felicitate ourselves upon whatever of eminence or good fortune has attended the efforts of their descendants, the reference, Mr. President, you have made in connection with this toast to the court over which I have the honor to preside enables me with propriety to indulge in an allusion to those from New England who have labored in that field.

On the seventh of April, 1789, a committee was appointed by the Senate "to bring in a bill for organizing the judiciary of the United States." Able as were his colleagues, it has been generally conceded that "that great act was penned" by the chairman of that committee, Oliver Ellsworth, of Connecticut. On the twenty-fourth of September--the day upon which the Judiciary Act became a law--President Washington nominated for the Supreme Court of the United States a chief justice and five associates, among the latter William Cushing, of Massachusetts, who, after holding high judicial office under the Crown, but supporting the cause of his country in the Revolution, becoming the first chief justice of the State of Massachusetts, passed from that distinguished station to the Federal bench, as one of his eminent successors has done in our day, and who was commissioned to, but compelled to decline, the headship of the court. Then came Ellsworth, whose great services in framing the Federal Constitution in the Connecticut Convention, in the United States Senate, in high diplomatic position, were complemented by those he performed in the discharge of the duties of this exalted office.

And so, following the careers of Marshall and Taney, Chase (fresh from magnificent conduct of the national finances under circumstances of tremendous difficulty), and Waite, from long and successful practice at the bar, won enduring fame by deserving and obtaining the commendation that a place rendered so illustrious by their predecessors had lost nothing in their hands; men of New England birth, thus dividing in number the incumbency in succession to Ellsworth, while he who has but just entered upon that service, proud of the Prairie State from whence he comes, has never ceased to regard with affection that particular portion of the Fatherland in which he first saw the light.

Ellsworth and Waite, Baldwin and Field, and Strong, of Connecticut; Chase and Woodbury, and Clifford, of New Hampshire; Cushing and Storey, and Curtis, and Gray, of Massachusetts--these are names written imperishably upon the records of the Court. But of the five from Connecticut, Pennsylvania and California and Ohio claim four, and of the three from New Hampshire, Ohio and Maine two; while the Old Bay State preserved her hold on hers.

Surely it is not too much for me to say, that up to the present time New England has in this sphere of public usefulness vindicated her title to regard by the exhibition on the part of her sons of that devotion to duty and that adherence to principle which characterized the men to whose memory the celebration of this day is dedicated.

May that memory ever be precious, and reliance upon that Providence which sustained them under the tribulations of their time, and has conducted their children in triumphant progress through succeeding years, never be less. [Applause.]

HAMLIN GARLAND

REALISM VERSUS ROMANTICISM

[Speech of Hamlin Garland at the eighty-second dinner of the Sunset
Club, Chicago, Ill., January 31, 1895. The chairman of the evening,
Arthur W. Underwood, introduced Mr. Garland to speak in relation to
the general subject of the evening's discussion, "The Tendency and
Influence of Modern Fiction." Mr. Underwood said: "To some of us the
field of modern fiction may have seemed before this evening a
wilderness without a chart. We are fortunate in having with us a man
who has left the 'main travelled roads' of fiction and, to mix
metaphors a little, a man who can tell us whether the 'idols' that are
'crumbling' are those of the realist or those of the idealist,--Mr.
Hamlin Garland."]

GENTLEMEN:--It is very interesting and pleasant to have the critic come at the problem in his mathematical fashion, but that will not settle it. I will tell you what will settle it--the human soul of the creative man; because if he has the creative power and impulse in him it will make no difference to him whether or not a single person in the world reads or understands his book, or appreciates and understands his painting. What could the critic do with Claude Monet thirty-five years ago? What could the critic do with Robert Browning when he appeared? What has the critic done thus far with Walt Whitman, the greatest spiritual democrat this nation has ever produced? This question is not settled by the schools; it is not settled by critics; it is not to be settled by a group of realists or a group of veritists, or the latest group of impressionists. It is to be settled by the creative impulse of the man, first; and second, and always subordinate to the real artist, the public.