Chapter I: PRESUME I take about as much interest in what that picture represents (2)

I congratulate you that you live in a period when the North has attained a higher moral altitude than was ever attained by any nation. You now live in a country which believes in absolute freedom for all. In this country any man may reap what he sows and may give his honest thought to his fellow-men. It is wonderful to think what this Nation was before the Army of the Potomac came into existence. It believed in liberty as the convict believes in liberty. It was a country where men that had honest thoughts were ostracized. I thank you and your courage for what we are. Nothing ennobles a man so much as fighting for the right. Whoever fights for the wrong wounds himself. I believe that every man who fought in the Union army came out a stronger and a better and a nobler man.

I believe in this country. I am so young and so full of enthusiasm that I am a believer in National growth. I want this country to be territorial and to become larger than it is. I want a country worthy of Chicago. I want to pick up the West Indies, take in the Bermudas, the Bahamas and Barbadoes. They are our islands. They belong to this continent and it is a piece of impudence for any other nation to think of owning them. We want to grow. Such is the extravagance of my ambition that I even want the Sandwich Islands. They say that these islands are too far away from us; that they are two thousand miles from our shores. But they are nearer to our shores than to any other. I want them. I want a naval station there. I want America to be mistress of the Pacific. Then there is another thing in my mind. I want to grow North and South. I want Canada--good people--good land. I want that country. I do not want to steal it, but I want it. I want to go South with this Nation. My idea is this: There is only air enough between the Isthmus of Panama and the North Pole for one flag. A country that guarantees liberty to all cannot be too large. If any of these people are ignorant, we will educate them; give them the benefit of our free schools. Another thing--I might as well sow a few seeds for next fall. I have heard many reasons why the South failed in the Rebellion, and why with the help of Northern dissensions and a European hatred the South did not succeed. I will tell you. In my judgment, the South failed, not on account of its army, but from other conditions. Luckily for us, the South had always been in favor of free trade.

Secondly--The South raised and sold raw material, and when the war came it had no foundries, no factories, and no looms to weave the cloth for uniforms; no shops to make munitions of war, and it had to get what supplies it could by running the blockade. We of the North had the cloth to clothe our soldiers, shops to make our bayonets; we had all the curious wheels that invention had produced, and had labor and genius, the power of steam, and the water to make what we needed, and we did not require anything from any other country. Suppose this whole country raised raw material and shipped it out, we would be in the condition that the South was. We want this Nation to be independent of the whole world. A nation to be ready to settle questions of dispute by war should be in a condition of absolute independence. For that reason I want all the wheels turning in this country, all the chimneys full of fire, all the looms running, the iron red hot everywhere. I want to see all mechanics having plenty of work with good wages and good homes for their families, good food, schools for their children, plenty of clothes, and enough to take care of a child if it happens to take sick. I am for the independence of America, the growth of America physically, mentally, and every other way. The time will come when all nations combined cannot take that flag out of the sky. I want to see this country so that if a deluge sweeps every other nation from the face of the globe we would have all we want made right here by our factories, by American brain and hand.

I thank you that the Republic still lives. I thank you that we are all lovers of freedom. I thank you for having helped establish a Government where every child has an opportunity, and where every avenue of advancement if open to all.

LOTOS CLUB DINNER IN HONOR OF ANTON SEIDL.

New York, February 2, 1895.

MR. PRESIDENT, Mr. Anton Seidl, and Gentlemen: I was enjoying myself with music and song; why I should be troubled, why I should be called upon to trouble you, is a question I can hardly answer. Still, as the president has remarked, the American people like to hear speeches. Why, I don't know. It has always been a matter of amazement that anybody wanted to hear me. Talking is so universal; with few exceptions--the deaf and dumb--everybody seems to be in the business. Why they should be so anxious to hear a rival I never could understand. But, gentlemen, we are all pupils of nature; we are taught by the countless things that touch us on every side; by field and flower and star and cloud and river and sea, where the waves break into whitecaps, and by the prairie, and by the mountain that lifts its granite forehead to the sun; all things in nature touch us, educate us, sharpen us, cause the heart to bud, to burst, it may be, into blossom; to produce fruit. In common with the rest of the world I have been educated a little that way; by the things I have seen and by the things I have heard and by the people I have met. But there are a few things that stand out in my recollection as having touched me more deeply than others, a few men to whom I feel indebted for the little I know, and for the little I happen to be. Those men, those things, are forever present in my mind. But I want to tell you to-night that the first man that let up the curtain in my mind, that ever opened a blind, that ever allowed a little sunshine to straggle in, was Robert Burns. I went to get my shoes mended, and I had to go with them. And I had to wait till they were done. I was like the fellow standing by the stream naked washing his shirt. A lady and gentleman were riding by in a carriage, and upon seeing him the man indignantly shouted, "Why don't you put on another shirt when you are washing one?" The fellow said, "I suppose you think I've got a hundred shirts!"

When I went into the shop of the old Scotch shoemaker he was reading a book, and when he took my shoes in hand I took his book, which was "Robert Burns." In a few days I had a copy; and, indeed, gentlemen, from that time if "Burns" had been destroyed I could have restored more than half of it. It was in my mind day and night. Burns you know is a little valley, not very wide, but full of sunshine; a little stream runs down making music over the rocks, and children play upon the banks; narrow roads overrun with vines, covered with blossoms, happy children, the hum of bees, and little birds pour out their hearts and enrich the air. That is Burns. Then, you must know that I was raised respectably. Certain books were not thought to be good for the young person; only such books as would start you in the narrow road for the New Jerusalem. But one night I stopped at a little hotel in Illinois, many years ago, when we were not quite civilized, when the footsteps of the red man were still in the prairies. While I was waiting for supper an old man was reading from a book, and among others who were listening was myself. I was filled with wonder. I had never heard anything like it. I was ashamed to ask him what he was reading; I supposed that an intelligent boy ought to know. So I waited, and when the little bell rang for supper I hung back and they went out. I picked up the book; it was Sam Johnson's edition of Shakespeare. The next day I bought a copy for four dollars. My God! more than the national debt. You talk about the present straits of the Treasury! For days, for nights, for months, for years, I read those books, two volumes, and I commenced with the introduction. I haven't read that introduction for nearly fifty years, certainly forty-five, but I remember it still. Other writers are like a garden diligently planted and watered, but Shakespeare a forest where the oaks and elms toss their branches to the storm, where the pine towers, where the vine bursts into blossom at its foot. That book opened to me a new world, another nature. While Burns was the valley, here was a range of mountains with thousands of such valleys; while Burns was as sweet a star as ever rose into the horizon, here was a heaven filled with constellations. That book has been a source of perpetual joy to me from that day to this; and whenever I read Shakespeare--if it ever happens that I fail to find some new beauty, some new presentation of some wonderful truth, or another word that bursts into blossom, I shall make up my mind that my mental faculties are failing, that it is not the fault of the book. Those, then, are two things that helped to educate me a little.

Afterward I saw a few paintings by Rembrandt, and all at once I was overwhelmed with the genius of the man that could convey so much thought in form and color. Then I saw a few landscapes by Corot, and I began to think I knew something about art. During all my life, of course, like other people, I had heard what they call music, and I had my favorite pieces, most of those favorite pieces being favorites on account of association; and nine-tenths of the music that is beautiful to the world is beautiful because of the association, not because the music is good, but because of association.. We cannot write a very poetic thing about a pump or about water works; they are not old enough.

We can write a poetic thing about a well and a sweep and an old moss-covered bucket, and you can write a poem about a spring, because a spring seems a gift of nature, something that cost no trouble and no work, something that will sing of nature under the quiet stars of June. So, it is poetic on account of association. The stage coach is more poetic than the car, but the time will come when cars will be poetic, because human feelings, love's remembrances, will twine around them, and consequently they will become beautiful. There are two pieces of music, "The Last Rose of Summer," and "Home Sweet Home," with the music a little weak in the back; but association makes them both beautiful. So, in the "Marseillaise" is the French Revolution, that whirlwind and flame of war, of heroism the highest possible, of generosity, of self-denial, of cruelty, of all of which the human heart and brain are capable; so that music now sounds as though its notes were made of stars, and it is beautiful mostly by association.

Now, I always felt that there must be some greater music somewhere, somehow. You know this little music that comes back with recurring emphasis every two inches or every three-and-a-half inches; I thought there ought to be music somewhere with a great sweep from horizon to horizon, and that could fill the great dome of sound with winged notes like the eagle; if there was not such music, somebody, sometime, would make it, and I was waiting for it. One day I heard it, and I said, "What music is that?" "Who wrote that?" I felt it everywhere. I was cold. I was almost hysterical. It answered to my brain, to my heart; not only to association, but to all there was of hope and aspiration, all my future; and they said this is the music of Wagner. I never knew one note from another--of course I would know it from a promissory note--and was utterly and absolutely ignorant of music until I heard Wagner interpreted by the greatest leader, in my judgment, in the world--Anton Seidl. He not only understands Wagner in the brain, but he feels him in the heart, and there is in his blood the same kind of wild and splendid independence that was in the brain of Wagner. I want to say to-night, because there are so many heresies, Mr. President, creeping into this world, I want to say and say it with all my might, that Robert Burns was not Scotch. He was far wider than Scotland: he had in him the universal tide, and wherever it touches the shore of a human being it finds access. Not Scotch, gentlemen, but a man, a man! I can swear to it, or rather affirm, that Shakespeare was not English, but another man, kindred of all, of all races and peoples, and who understood the universal brain and heart of the human race, and who had imagination enough to put himself in the place of all.

And so I want to say to-night, because I want to be consistent, Richard Wagner was not a German, and his music is not German; and why? Germany would not have it. Germany denied that it was music. The great German critics said it was nothing in the world but noise. The best interpreter of Wagner in the world is not German, and no man has to be German to understand Richard Wagner. In the heart of nearly every man is an AEolian harp, and when the breath of true genius touches that harp, every man that has one, or that knows what music is or has the depth and height of feeling necessary to appreciate it, appreciates Richard Wagner. To understand that music, to hear it as interpreted by this great leader, is an education. It develops the brain; it gives to the imagination wings; the little earth grows larger; the people grow important; and not only that, it civilizes the heart; and the man who understands that music can love better and with greater intensity than he ever did before. The man who understands and appreciates that music, becomes in the highest sense spiritual--and I don't mean by spiritual, worshiping some phantom, or dwelling upon what is going to happen to some of us--I mean spiritual in the highest sense; when a perfume arises from the heart in gratitude, and when you feel that you know what there is of beauty, of sublimity, of heroism and honor and love in the human heart. This is what I mean by being spiritual. I don't mean denying yourself here and living on a crust with the expectation of eternal joy--that is not what I mean. By spiritual I mean a man that has an ideal, a great ideal, and who is splendid enough to live to that ideal; that is what I mean by spiritual. And the man who has heard the music of Wagner, that music of love and death, the greatest music, in my judgment, that ever issued from the human brain, the man who has heard that and understands it has been civilized.

Another man to whom I feel under obligation whose name I do not know--I know Burns, Shakespeare, Rembrandt and Wagner, but there are some other fellows whose names I do not know--is he who chiseled the Venus de Milo. This man helped to civilize the world; and there is nothing under the sun so pathetic as the perfect. Whoever creates the perfect has thought and labored and suffered; and no perfect thing has ever been done except through suffering and except through the highest and holiest thought, and among this class of men is Wagner. Let me tell you something more. You know I am a great believer. There is no man in the world who believes more in human nature than I do. No man believes more in the nobility and splendor of humanity than I do; no man feels more grateful than I to the self-denying, heroic, splendid souls who have made this world fit for ladies and gentlemen to live in. But I believe that the human mind has reached its top in three departments. I don't believe the human race--no matter if it lives millions of years more upon this wheeling world--I don't believe the human race will ever produce in the world anything greater, sublimer, than the marbles of the Greeks. I do not believe it. I believe they reach absolutely the perfection of form and the expression of force and passion in stone. The Greeks made marble as sensitive as flesh and as passionate as blood. I don't believe that any human being of any coming race--no matter how many suns may rise and set, or how many religions may rise and fall, or how many languages be born and decay--I don't believe any human being will ever excel the dramas of Shakespeare. Neither do I believe that the time will ever come when any man with such instruments of music as we now have, and having nothing but the common air that we now breathe, will ever produce greater pictures in sound, greater music, than Wagner. Never! Never! And I don't believe he will ever have a better interpreter than Anton Seidl. Seidl is a poet in sound, a sculptor in sound. He is what you might call an orchestral orator, and as such he expresses the deepest feelings, the highest aspirations and the in-tensest and truest love of which the brain and heart of man are capable.

Now, I am glad, I am delighted, that the people here in this city and in various other cities of our great country are becoming civilized enough to appreciate these harmonies; I am glad they are civilized at last enough to know that the home of music is tone, not tune; that the home of music is in harmonies where you braid them like rainbows; I am glad they are great enough and civilized enough to appreciate the music of Wagner, the greatest music in this world. Wagner sustains the same relation to other composers that Shakespeare does to other dramatists, and any other dramatist compared with Shakespeare is like one tree compared with an immeasurable forest, or rather like one leaf compared with a forest; and all the other composers of the world are embraced in the music of Wagner.

"Nobody has written anything more tender than he, nobody anything sublimer than he. Whether it is the song of the deep, or the warble of the mated bird, nobody has excelled Wagner; he has expressed all that the human heart is capable of appreciating. And now, gentlemen, having troubled you long enough, and saying long live Anton Seidl, I bid you good-night."

LOTOS CLUB DINNER IN HONOR OF REAR ADMIRAL SCHLEY.

New York, November 26, 1898.

* The Lotos Club did honor to Rear Admiral Winfield Scott
Schley, and incidentally, to the United States, at its
clubhouse in Fifth Avenue last night. All day long the
square, blue pennant, blazoned with the two stars of a Rear
Admiral, snapped in the wind, signifying to all who saw it
that the Lotos Clubhouse was for the time being the flagship
of the erstwhile Flying Squadron.

Within the home of the club were gathered men who like the
guest of the evening were prominent in the war with Spain,
The navy was represented by Capt. Charles D. Sigs-Dee, Capt.
A. T. Mahan and Captain Goodrich. From the army there was
Brig. Gen. W F. Randolph, and from civil life many men
prominent in the business, professional and social life of
the city. The one impulse that led these men to brave the
storm was their desire to pay their respects to one of the
men who had done so much to win laurels for the American
arms.

The parlors and dining rooms of the clubhouse wore thrown
into one in order to accommodate the three hundred men
present fit the dinner. Smilax covered the walls, save hero
and there where the American flag was draped in graceful
folds. From the archway under which the table of honor was
spread, hung a large National ensign and a Rear Admiral's
pennant.

The menu was unique. Etched on a cream-tinted paper appeared
an open nook, and on the tops of the pages was inscribed,
"Logge of the Goode Ship Lotos." "Dinner to Rear Admiral
Winfield Scott Schley, given in the cabin of ye Shippe, Nov.
26, l898, Lat. 40 degrees 42 minutes 43 seconds north;
longitude, 74 degrees 3 seconds west."

On each side of the menu was stretched a string of signal
flags, giving the orders made famous by Admiral Schley in
the naval engagement of July 3, 1898. On the second page of
the menu was a fine etching of the Brooklyn, Admiral
Schley's flagship. The souvenir menu was inclosed in blue
paper, upon which were two white stars, the whole
representing Rear Admiral Schley's pennant.

MR.PRESIDENT, Gentlemen of the Club--Boys: I congratulate all of you and I congratulate myself, and I will tell you why. In the first place, we were well born, and we were all born rich, all of us. We belong to a great race. That is something; that is having a start, to feel that in your veins flows heroic blood, blood that has accomplished great things and has planted the flag of victory on the field of war. It is a great thing to belong to a great race.

I congratulate you and myself on another thing; we were born in a great nation, and you can't be much of a man without having a nation behind you, with you; Just think about it! What would Shakespeare have been, if he had been born in Labrador? I used to know an old lawyer in southern Illinois, a smart old chap, who mourned his unfortunate surroundings. He lived in Pinkneyville, and occasionally drank a little too freely of Illinois wine; and when in his cups he sometimes grew philosophic and egotistic. He said one day, "Boys, I have got more brains than you have, I have, but I have never had a chance. I want you just to think of it. What would Daniel Webster have been, by God, if he had settled in Pinkneyville?"

So I congratulate you all that you were born in a great nation, born rich; and why do I say rich? Because you fell heir to a great, expressive, flexible language; that is one thing. What could a man do who speaks a poor language, a language of a few words that you could almost count on your fingers? What could he do? You were born heirs to a great literature, the greatest in the world--in all the world. All the literature of Greece and Rome would not make one act of "Hamlet." All the literature of the ancient world added to all of the modern world, except England, would not equal the literature that we have. We were born to it, heirs to that vast intellectual possession.

So I say you were all born rich, all. And then you were very fortunate in being born in this country, where people have some rights, not as many as they should have, not as many as they would have if it were not for the preachers, may be, but where we have some; and no man yet was ever great unless a great drama was being played on some great stage and he got a part. Nature deals you a hand, and all she asks is for you to have the sense to play it. If no hand is dealt to you, you win no money. You must have the opportunity, must be on the stage, and some great drama must be there. Take it in our own country. The Revolutionary war was a drama, and a few great actors appeared; the War of 1812 was another, and a few appeared; the Civil war another. Where would have been the heroes whose brows we have crowned with laurel had there been no Civil war? What would have become of Lincoln, a lawyer in a country town? What would have become of Grant? He would have been covered with the mantle of absolute obscurity, tucked in at all the edges, his name never heard of by any human being not related to him.

Now, you have got to have the chance, and you cannot create it. I heard a gentleman say here a few minutes ago that this war could have been averted. That is not true. I am not doubting his veracity, but rather his philosophy. Nothing ever happened beneath the dome of heaven that could have been avoided. Everything that is possible happens. That may not suit all the creeds, but it is true. And everything that is possible will continue to happen. The war could not have been averted, and the thing that makes me glad and proud is that it was not averted. I will tell you why.

It was the first war in the history of this world that was waged unselfishly for the good of others; the first war. Almost anybody will fight for himself; a great many people will fight for their country, their fellow-men, their fellow-citizens; but it requires something besides courage to fight for the rights of aliens; it requires not only courage, but principle and the highest morality. This war was waged to compel Spain to take her bloody hands from the throat of Cuba. That is exactly what it was waged for. Another great drama was put upon the boards, another play was advertised, and the actors had their opportunity. Had there been no such war, many of the actors would never have been heard of.

But the thing is to take advantage of the occasion when it arrives. In this war we added to the greatness and the glory of our history. That is another thing that we all fell heirs to--the history of our people, the history of our Nation. We fell heirs to all the great and grand things that had been accomplished, to all the great deeds, to the splendid achievements either in the realm of mind or on the field of battle.

Then there was another great drama. The first thing we knew, a man in the far Pacific, a gentleman from Vermont, sailed one May morning into the bay of Manila, and the next news was that the Spanish fleet had been beached, burned, destroyed, and nothing had happened to him. I have read a little history, not much, and a good deal that I have read was not true. I have read something about our own navy, not much. I recollect when I was a boy my hero was John Paul Jones; he covered the ocean; and afterward I knew of Hull and Perry and Decatur and Bainbridge and a good many others that I don't remember now. And then came the Civil war, and I remember a little about Farragut, a great Admiral, as great as ever trod a deck, in my judgment. And I have also read about other admirals and sailors of the world. I knew something of Drake and I have read the "Life of Nelson" and several other sea dogs; but when I got the news from Manila I said, "There is the most wonderful victory ever won upon the sea;" and I did not think it would ever be paralleled. I thought such things come one in a box. But a little while afterward another of Spain's fleets was heard from. Oh, those Spaniards! They have got the courage of passion, but that is not the highest courage. They have got plenty of that; but it is necessary to be coolly courageous, and to have the brain working with the accuracy of an engine--courageous, I don't care how mad you get, but there must not be a cloud in the heaven of your judgment. That is Anglo-Saxon courage, and there is no higher type. The Spaniards sprinkled the holy water on their guns, then banged away and left it to the Holy Ghost to direct the rest.

Another fleet, at Santiago, ventured out one day, and another great victory was won by the American Navy. I don't know which victory was the more wonderful, that at Manila Bay or that at Santiago. The Spanish ships were, some of them, of the best class and type, and had fine guns, yet in a few moments they were wrecks on the shore of defeat, gone, lost.

Now, when I used to read about these things in the olden times, what ideas I had of the hero! I never expected to see one; and yet to-night I have the happiness of dining with one, with one whose name is associated with as great a victory, in my judgment, as was ever won; a victory that required courage, intelligence, that power of will that holds itself firm until the thing sought has been accomplished; and that has my greatest admiration. I thank Admiral Schley for having enriched my country, for having added a little to my own height, to my own pride, so that I utter the word America with a little more unction than I ever did before, and the old flag looks a little brighter, better, and has an added glory. When I see it now, it looks as if the air had burst into blossom, and it stands for all that he has accomplished.

Admiral Schley has added not only to our wealth, but to the wealth of the children yet unborn that are going to come into the great heritage not only of wealth, but of the highest possible riches, glory, honor, achievement. That is the reason I congratulate you to-night. And I congratulate you on another thing, that this country has entered upon the great highway, I believe, of progress. I believe that the great nation has the sentiment, the feeling of growth. The successful farmer wants to buy the land adjoining him; the great nation loves to see its territory increase. And what has been our history? Why, when we bought Louisiana from Napoleon, in 1803, thousands of people were opposed to "imperialism," to expansion; the poor old moss-backs were opposed to it. When we bought Florida, it was the same. When we took the vast West from Mexico in 1848 it was the same. When we took Alaska it was the same. Now, is anybody in favor of modifying that sentiment?

We have annexed Hawaii, and we have got the biggest volcano in the business. A man I know visited that volcano some years ago and came back and told me about his visit. He said that at the little hotel they had a guest-book in which the people wrote their feelings on seeing the volcano in action. "Now," he said, "I will tell you this so that you may know how you are spreading out yourself. One man had written in that book, 'if Bob Ingersoll were here, I think he would change his mind about hell.'"

I want that volcano. I want the Philippines. It would be simply infamous to hand those people back to the brutality of Spain. Spain has been Christianizing them for about four hundred years. The first thing the poor devils did was to sign a petition asking for the expulsion of the priests. That was their idea of the commencement of liberty. They are not quite so savage as some people imagine. I want those islands; I want all of them, and I don't know that I disagree with the Rev. Mr. Slicer as to the use we can put them to. I don't know that they will be of any use, but I want them; they might come handy. And I wanted to pick up the small change, the Ladrones and the Carolines. I am glad we have got Porto Rico. I don't know as it will be of any use, but there's no harm in having the title. I want Cuba whenever Cuba wants us, and I favor the idea of getting her in the notion of wanting us. I want it in the interest, as I believe, of humanity, of progress; in other words, of human liberty. That is what the war was waged for, and the fact that it was waged for that, gives an additional glory to these naval officers and to the officers in the army. They fought in the first righteous war; I mean righteous in the sense that we fought for the liberty of others.

Now, gentlemen, I feel that we have all honored ourselves to-night by honoring Rear Admiral Schley. I want you to know that long after we are dead and long after the Admiral has ceased to sail, he will be remembered, and in the constellation of glory one of the brightest stars will stand for the name of Winfield Scott Schley, as brave an officer as ever sailed a ship. I am glad I am here to-night, and again, gentlemen, I congratulate you all upon being here. I congratulate you that you belong to this race, to this nation, and that you are equal heirs in the glory of the great Republic.

ADDRESS TO THE ACTORS' FUND OF AMERICA.

New York, June 5, 1888.

MR. PRESIDENT, Ladies and Gentlemen: I have addressed, or annoyed, a great many audiences in my life and I have not the slightest doubt that I stand now before more ability, a greater variety of talent, and more real genius than I ever addressed in my life.

I know all about respectable stupidity, and I am perfectly acquainted with the brainless wealth and success of this life, and I know, after all, how poor the world would be without that divine thing that we call genius--what a worthless habitation, if you take from it all that genius has given.

I know also that all joy springs from a love of nature. I know that all joy is what I call Pagan. The natural man takes delight in everything that grows, in everything that shines, in everything that enjoys--he has an immense sympathy with the whole human race.

Of that feeling, of that spirit, the drama is born. People must first be in love with life before they can think it worth representing. They must have sympathy with their fellows before they can enter into their feelings and know what their heart throbs about. So, I say, back of the drama is this love of life, this love of nature. And whenever a country becomes prosperous--and this has been pointed cut many times--when a wave of wealth runs over a land,--behind it you will see all the sons and daughters of genius. When a man becomes of some account he is worth painting. When by success and prosperity he gets the pose of a victor, the sculptor is inspired; and when love is really in his heart, words burst into blossom and the poet is born. When great virtues appear, when magnificent things are done by heroines and heroes, then the stage is built, and the life of a nation is compressed into a few hours, or--to use the language of the greatest--"turning the accomplishment of many years into an hour-glass"; the stage is born, and we love it because we love life--and he who loves the stage has a kind of double life.

The drama is a crystallization of history, an epitome of the human heart. The past is lived again and again, and we see upon the stage, love, sacrifice, fidelity, courage--all the virtues mingled with all the follies.

And what is the great thing that the stage does? It cultivates the imagination. And let me say now, that the imagination constitutes the great difference between human beings.

The imagination is the mother of pity, the mother of generosity, the mother of every possible virtue. It is by the imagination that you are enabled to put yourself in the place of another. Every dollar that has been paid into your treasury came from an imagination vivid enough to imagine himself or herself lying upon the lonely bed of pain, or as having fallen by the wayside of life, dying alone. It is this imagination that makes the difference in men.

Do you believe that a man would plunge the dagger into the heart of another if he had imagination enough to see him dead--imagination enough to see his widow throw her arms about the corpse and cover his face with sacred tears--imagination enough to see them digging his grave, and to see the funeral and to hear the clods fall upon the coffin and the sobs of those who stood about--do you believe he would commit the crime? Would any man be false who had imagination enough to see the woman that he once loved, in the darkness of night, when the black clouds were floating through the sky hurried by the blast as thoughts and memories were hurrying through her poor brain--if he could see the white flutter of her garment as she leaped to the eternal, blessed sleep of death--do you believe that he would be false to her? I tell you that he would be true.

So that, in my judgment, the great mission of the stage is to cultivate the human imagination. That is the reason fiction has done so much good. Compared with the stupid lies-called history, how beautiful are the imagined things with painted wings. Everybody detests a thing that pretends to be true and is not; but when it says, "I am about to create," then it is beautiful in the proportion that it is artistic, in the proportion that it is a success.

Imagination is the mother of enthusiasm. Imagination fans the little spark into a flame great enough to warm the human race; and enthusiasm is to the mind what spring is to the world. .

Now I am going to say a few words because I want to, and because I have the chance.

What is known as "orthodox religion" has always been the enemy of the theatre. It has been the enemy of every possible comfort, of every rational joy--that is to say, of amusement. And there is a reason for this. Because, if that religion be true, there should be no amusement. If you believe that in every moment is the peril of eternal pain--do not amuse yourself. Stop the orchestra, ring down the curtain, and be as miserable as you can. That idea puts an infinite responsibility upon the soul--an infinite responsibility--and how can there be any art, how can there be any joy, after that? You might as well pile all the Alps on one unfortunate ant, and then say, "Why don't you play? Enjoy yourself."

If that doctrine be true, every one should regard time as a kind of dock, a pier running out into the ocean of eternity, on which you sit on your trunk and wait for the ship of death--solemn, lugubrious, melancholy to the last degree.

And that is why I have said joy is Pagan. It comes from a love of nature, from a love of this world, from a love of this life. According to the idea of some good people, life is a kind of green-room, where you are getting ready for a "play" in some other country.

You all remember the story of "Great Expectations," and I presume you have all had them. That is another thing about this profession of acting that I like--you do not know how it is coming out--and there is this delightful uncertainty.

You have all read the book called "Great Expectations," written, in my judgment, by the greatest novelist that ever wrote the English language--the man who created a vast realm of joy. I love the joy-makers--not the solemn, mournful wretches. And when I think of the church asking something of the theatre, I remember that story of "Great Expectations." You remember Miss Haversham--she was to have been married some fifty or sixty years before that time--sitting there in the darkness, in all of her wedding finery, the laces having turned yellow by time, the old wedding cake crumbled, various insects having made it their palatial residence--you remember that she sent for that poor little boy Pip, and when he got there in the midst of all these horrors, she looked at him and said, "Pip, play!" And if their doctrine be true, every actor is in that situation.

I have always loved the theatre--loved the stage, simply because it has added to the happiness of this life. "Oh, but," they say, "is it moral?" A superstitious man suspects everything that is pleasant. It seems inbred in his nature, and in the nature of most people. You let such a man pull up a little weed and taste it, and if it is sweet and good, he says, "I'll bet it is poison." But if it tastes awful, so that his face becomes a mask of disgust, he says, "I'll bet you that it is good medicine."

Now, I believe that everything in the world that tends to make man happy, is moral. That is my definition of morality. Anything that bursts into bud and blossom, and bears the fruit of joy, is moral.

Some people expect to make the world good by destroying desire--by a kind of pious petrifaction, feeling that if you do not want anything, you will not want anything bad. In other words, you will be good and moral if you will only stop growing, stop wishing, turn all your energies in the direction of repression, and if from the tree of life you pull every leaf, and then every bud--and if an apple happens to get ripe in spite of you, don't touch it--snakes!

I insist that happiness is the end--virtue the means--and anything that wipes a tear from the face of man is good. Everything that gives laughter to the world--laughter springing from good nature, that is the most wonderful music that has ever enriched the ears of man. And let me say that nothing can be more immoral than to waste your own life, and sour that of others.

Is the theatre moral? I suppose you have had an election to-day. They had an election at the Metropolitan Opera House for bishops, and they voted forged tickets; and after the election was over, I suppose they asked the old question in the same solemn tone: "Is the theatre moral?"

At last, all the intelligence of the world admits that the theatre is a great, a splendid instrumentality for increasing the well-being of man. But only a few years ago our fathers were poor barbarians. They only wanted the essentials of life, and through nearly all the centuries Genius was a vagabond--Art was a servant. He was the companion of the clown. Writers, poets, actors, either sat "below the salt" or devoured the "remainder biscuit," and drank what drunkenness happened to leave, or lived on crumbs, and they had less than the crumbs of respect. The painter had to have a patron, and then in order to pay the patron, he took the patron's wife for Venus--and the man, he was the Apollo! So the writer had to have a patron, and he endeavored to immortalize him in a preface of obsequious lies. The writer had no courage. The painter, the sculptor--poor wretches--had "patrons." Some of the greatest of the world were treated as servants, and yet they were the real kings of the human race.

Now the public is the patron. The public has the intelligence to see what it wants. The stage does not have to flatter any man. The actor now does not enroll himself as the servant of duke or lord. He has the great public, and if he is a great actor, he stands as high in the public estimation as any other man in any other walk of life.

And these men of genius, these "vagabonds," these "sturdy vagrants" of the old law--and let me say one thing right here: I do not believe that there ever was a man of genius that had not a little touch of the vagabond in him somewhere--just a little touch of chaos--that is to say, he must have generosity enough now and then absolutely to forget himself--he must be generous to that degree that he starts out without thinking of the shore and without caring for the sea--and that is that touch of chaos. And yet, through all those years the poets and the actors lacked bread. Imagine the number of respectable dolts who felt above them. The men of genius lived on the bounty of the few, grudgingly given.

Now, just think what would happen, what we would be, if you could blot from this world what these men have done. If you could take from the walls the pictures; from the niches the statues; from the memory of man the songs that have been sung by "The Plowman"--take from the memory of the world what has been done by the actors and play-writers, and this great globe would be like a vast skull emptied of all thought.

And let me say one word more, and that is as to the dignity of your profession.

The greatest genius of this world has produced your literature. I am not now alluding simply to one--but there has been more genius lavished upon the stage--more real genius, more creative talent, than upon any other department of human effort. And when men and women belong to a profession that can count Shakespeare in its number, they should feel nothing but pride.

Nothing gives me more pleasure than to speak of Shakespeare--Shakespeare, in whose brain were the fruits of all thoughts past, the seeds of all to be--Shakespeare, an intellectual ocean toward which all rivers ran, and from which now the isles and continents of thought receive their dew and rain.

A profession that can boast that Shakespeare was one of its members, and that from his brain poured out that mighty intellectual cataract--that Mississippi that will enrich all coming generations--the man that belongs to that profession--should feel that no other man by reason of belonging to some other, can be his superior.

And such a man, when he dies--or the friend of such a man, when that man dies--should not imagine that it is a very generous and liberal thing for some minister to say a few words above the corpse--and I do not want to see this profession cringe before any other.

One word more. I hope that you will sustain this splendid charity. I do not believe that more generous people exist than actors. I hope you will sustain this charity. And yet, there was one little thing I saw in your report of last year, that I want to call attention to. You had "benefits" all over this country, and of the amount raised, one hundred and twenty-five thousand dollars were given to religious societies and twelve thousand dollars to the Actors' Fund--and yet they say actors are not Christians! Do you not love your enemies? After this, I hope that you will also love your friends.

THE CHILDREN OF THE STAGE.

New York, March 23, 1899.

* Col. Robert G. Ingersoll was the special star among stars
at the benefit given yesterday afternoon at the Fifth Avenue
Theatre for the Actors' Fund. There were a great many other
stars and a very long programme. The consequence was that
the performance began before one o'clock and was not over
until almost dinner time.

Usually in such cases the least important performers are
placed at the beginning and the audience straggles in
leisurely without worrying a great deal over what it has
missed. Yesterday, however, it had been announced in advance
that Col. Ingersoll would start the ball a-rolling and the
result was that before the overture was finished the house
was packed to the doors.

Col. Ingersoll's contribution was a short address delivered
in his characteristic style of florid eloquence.--The World,
New York, March 24, 1899.

Disguise it as we may, we live in a frightful world, with evils, with enemies, on every side. From the hedges along the path of life, leap the bandits that murder and destroy; and every human being, no matter how often he escapes, at last will fall beneath the assassin's knife.

To change the figure: We are all passengers on the train of life. The tickets give the names of the stations where we boarded the car, but the destination is unknown. At every station some passengers, pallid, breathless, dead, are put away, and some with the light of morning in their eyes, get on.

To change the figure again: On the wide sea of life we are all on ships or rafts or spars, and some by friendly winds are borne to the fortunate isles, and some by storms are wrecked on the cruel rocks. And yet upon the isles the same as upon the rocks, death waits for all. And death alone can truly say, "All things come to him who waits."

And yet, strangely enough, there is in this world of misery, of misfortune and of death, the blessed spirit of mirth. The travelers on the path, on the train, on the ships, the rafts and spars, sometimes forget their perils and their doom.

All blessings on the man whose face was first illuminated by a smile!

All blessings on the man who first gave to the common air the music of laughter--the music that for the moment drove fears from the heart, tears from the eyes, and dimpled cheeks with joy!

All blessings on the man who sowed with merry hands the seeds of humor, and at the lipless skull of death snapped the reckless fingers of disdain! Laughter is the blessed boundary line between the brute and man.

Who are the friends of the human race? They who hide with vine and flower the cruel rocks of fate--the children of genius, the sons and daughters of mirth and laughter, of imagination, those whose thoughts, like moths with painted wings, fill the heaven of the mind.

Among these sons and daughters are the children of the stage, the citizens of the mimic world--the world enriched by all the wealth of genius--enriched by painter, orator, composer and poet. The world of which Shakespeare, the greatest of human beings, is still the unchallenged emperor. These children of the stage have delighted the weary travelers on the thorny path, amused the passengers on the fated train, and filled with joy the hearts of the clingers to spars, and the floaters on rafts.

These, children of the stage, with fancy's wand rebuild the past. The dead are brought to life and made to act again the parts they played. The hearts and lips that long ago were dust, are made to beat and speak again. The dead kings are crowned once more, and from the shadows of the past emerge the queens, jeweled and sceptred as of yore. Lovers leave their graves and breathe again their burning vows; and again the white breasts rise and fall in passion's storm. The laughter that died away beneath the touch of death is heard again and lips that fell to ashes long ago are curved once more with mirth. Again the hero bares his breast to death; again the patriot falls, and again the scaffold, stained with noble blood, becomes a shrine.

The citizens of the real world gain joy and comfort from the stage. The broker, the speculator ruined by rumor, the lawyer baffled by the intelligence of a jury or the stupidity of a judge, the doctor who lost his patience because he lost his patients, the merchant in the dark days of depression, and all the children of misfortune, the victims of hope deferred, forget their troubles for a little while when looking on the mimic world. When the shaft of wit flies like the arrow of Ulysses through all the rings and strikes the centre; when words of wisdom mingle with the clown's conceits; when folly laughing shows her pearls, and mirth holds carnival; when the villain fails and the right triumphs, the trials and the griefs of life for the moment fade away.

And so the maiden longing to be loved, the young man waiting for the "Yes" deferred; the unloved wife, hear the old, old story told again,--and again within their hearts is the ecstasy of requited love.