CORNELL 
 
 UNIVERSITY 
 
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Cornell University Library 
 PS 2479.N4A6 1896 
 
 Addresses and fragments in prose and ver 
 
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ADDRESSES 
 
 FRAGMENTS IN PROSE AND VERSE 
 
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ADDRESSES 
 
 AND 
 
 FRAGMENTS 
 
 IN 
 
 PROSE AND VERSE 
 
 BY 
 
 JAMES SAGER NORTON 
 
 WITH AN INTRODUCTION 
 
 By EDWARD G. MASON 
 
 CHICAGO 
 
 A. C. McCLURG AND COMPANY 
 
 1896 
 
Copyright 
 
 By A. C. McCldrg and Co. 
 
 a.d. 1896 
 
CONTENTS. 
 
 Page 
 
 Introduction vii 
 
 Ferse. 
 
 Parting Ode 3 
 
 Abraham Lincoln 5 
 
 Chicago Yale Alumni Song 7 
 
 The Old Brick Row 8 
 
 Reunion Poem 10 
 
 Professor Precise 15 
 
 Say Yes, Petite 21 
 
 The One-Eared Man to the One-Eyed Maid ... 23 
 
 To my Neighbor 24 
 
 To E. J. G 25 
 
 To Eugene Field 27 
 
 The Old Story 28 
 
 Rhyming Letters from Abroad: 
 
 Algiers 33 
 
 Naples 37 
 
 Rome 39 
 
 Venice 45 
 
 Riviera 48 
 
VI CONTENTS. 
 
 |)tOSJ. 
 
 Page 
 
 George Washington 55 
 
 A Portion of the Old Testament Rewritten . . 60 
 
 The Confessions of a Millionaire ....... 67 
 
 The Rise and Fall of the Devil 96 
 
 A Trip to the Nipigon 136 
 
 The Bell(e)s of Yale 158 
 
 Our Clients 163 
 
 The King's English 169 
 
 Posterity 179 
 
 Yale in the West 186 
 
 Chicago 194 
 
 "Catting" 202 
 
 The Rights of the Citizen to his own Property 205 
 
 Mr. Jones's Experiment 222 
 
INTRODUCTION. 
 
 A LL who knew James Sager Norton will 
 -^*- take a sad pleasure in recalling the charac- 
 teristics which made him memorable in the com- 
 munity in which he lived and died. Even those 
 to whom he was a stranger who may peruse this 
 volume will realize to some degree what a rare, 
 bright spirit has passed away in him, and how 
 irreparable his loss is at his home and among his 
 friends. 
 
 He was born at Lockport, Illinois, December 
 sixth, 1844. Here he lived and attended school 
 until his seventeenth year, when he entered the 
 Freshman Class of Kenyon College. He remained 
 at this institution for two years, and then joined the 
 Junior Class of Yale College, graduating in 1865. 
 Though coming late into this class, he won many 
 friends, and, soon giving evidence of the literary 
 and poetic merit which distinguished him in after 
 
Vlll INTRODUCTION. 
 
 life, was chosen to write the Ivy Ode sung by his 
 classmates at their Presentation Day exercises. 
 After graduation he spent nine months in Europe, 
 and, returning, became a member of the Co- 
 lumbia Law School, from which he took his 
 degree of Bachelor of Law in 1867. 
 
 In the fall of that year he removed to Chicago, 
 and in due season was admitted to the Illinois 
 Bar, and began the practice of his profession. 
 The year before his coming to Chicago, the sons 
 of his Alma Mater residing there had formed 
 the Chicago Yale Association, one of the earliest 
 unions of the kind in the West, and indeed in the 
 whole country. In this organization he soon be- 
 came prominent, and repeated elections to its 
 presidency showed the esteem in which he was 
 held by his fellow-collegians. For wellnigh 
 thirty years he attended and took part in its 
 meetings, and spoke in prose or rhyme at all 
 but one of its annual dinners. The wit, the 
 pathos, the facile verse, with which he made 
 to live again the merry college days under the 
 elms of Yale, or in " the old red buildin's where 
 we went to school," were so delightful that one 
 had only to know that Norton was to speak on 
 one of these occasions to be sure of its sue- 
 
INTRODUCTION. IX 
 
 cess. Frequently he represented his dearly- 
 loved college at the gatherings of the alumni of 
 other institutions, and always to the honor of 
 Yale and the full satisfaction of his brother 
 Yalensians. A notable instance was that of the 
 dinner of the Harvard Association, at which 
 James Russell Lowell was a guest. Norton, as 
 spokesman for Yale, rising with impassive face 
 and gazing soberly into the eyes of his audi- 
 ence, thanked them in measured tones for the 
 unexpected opportunity afforded him of behold- 
 ing so many Harvard men pure and simple. 
 Then, alluding to his having received two invi- 
 tations to the dinner, he remarked that "the 
 secretary had casually mistaken him for a couple 
 of Harvard men." The humorous implication 
 that one Yale man was equal to two of Harvard 
 brought down the house ; 
 
 " And e'en the ranks of Tuscany 
 Could scarce forbear to cheer " 
 
 at his allusion to a recent athletic contest in which 
 Yale had been the victor, as an occasion when 
 " Yale had played football in the presence of Har- 
 vard." It is a real loss that this brilliant speech 
 has not been preserved in full. Suffice it to say 
 that Mr. Lowell pronounced it one of the hap- 
 
x INTRODUCTION. 
 
 piest he had ever listened to, and its author, " a 
 prince of after-dinner talkers." 
 
 He was one of the early members of the Chi- 
 cago Literary Club, founded in 1874, and became 
 its president in 1885, delivering a masterly ad- 
 dress at his inauguration. At many of its 
 monthly meetings, receptions, and annual meet- 
 ings, he presented papers or made speeches, 
 some of which have been preserved to be now 
 published. To its members were first read his 
 articles afterward published in the magazines, 
 and in many ways he showed his interest in it. 
 He is one of those to whom that club is under 
 deep obligation for the maintenance of its high 
 literary standard, and for its continued success. 
 
 The reputation which he gained in these asso- 
 ciations as an admirable speaker spread to the 
 community at large, without effort on his part, 
 and rather against his will. But he could not 
 prevent the growing demand for his appearance 
 upon public occasions, to which he was often 
 compelled to yield in Chicago and elsewhere. 
 The New York Yale Association invited him to 
 speak at its annual reunion on January twentieth, 
 1893. Yet so modestly did he rate his own ability 
 that his friends were hardly able to persuade 
 
INTRODUCTION. XI 
 
 him to accept the invitation. How well he ac- 
 quitted himself may be learned from the press 
 of the time, which repeated his praises for days, 
 and printed and reprinted his address. But 
 only those who had the good fortune to be 
 present can wholly realize the scene when three 
 hundred men, on their feet, and some even stand- 
 ing on the chairs and tables, were waving nap- 
 kins and programmes and cheering the pale, 
 calm speaker, master of himself and of the occa- 
 sion, as he uttered, in the intervals of tumultuous 
 applause, the brilliant sentences which evoked 
 such enthusiasm. 
 
 This address and the almost equally celebrated 
 one made in 1893, in Madison Square Garden, 
 New York, at the famous dinner given by the 
 artists and architects of the World's Fair to their 
 chief, Daniel H. Burnham, have fortunately been 
 preserved, and are now published in this volume. 
 There were many others, perhaps of no less 
 merit, which have passed away with the winged 
 words that he spoke. All of them as delivered 
 illustrated the special qualities of his oratory: 
 the calm, clear voice, the absolutely unmoved 
 countenance with which he said the brightest 
 and wittiest things, the happy and unexpected 
 
Xll INTRODUCTION. 
 
 turns of expression, and the delicious and origi- 
 nal humor which pervaded the whole. The 
 power to surprise and to please is as manifest 
 in his essays and his verse as in his speeches, 
 and all of his literary work is remarkable for 
 clearness of view and quickness of thought. The 
 charm of his conversation it is impossible to 
 reproduce. He was a master of repartee and 
 of epigram, and of a certain wonderful way of 
 putting things, which, so to speak, illumined any 
 subject he touched upon. His bright sayings 
 will long be remembered and quoted in the 
 circles which sorely miss him now. 
 
 It should also be said that the productions of 
 his pen were not those of a man of leisure or one 
 who had made literature his occupation, but were 
 the fruit of moments spared from an engrossing 
 profession. He was a busy attorney in active 
 practice, and held a high position at the Bar, 
 where he was known as a safe and sagacious 
 counsellor and an able advocate as well. Few 
 lawyers have accomplished more for their clients 
 than he, and more than one valuable estate to- 
 day is a monument to his wise foresight and pru- 
 dent management. On October fourteenth, 1873, 
 he was married to Miss Frances Rumsey, the 
 
INTRODUCTION. Xlll 
 
 daughter of George F. Rumsey, of Chicago. His 
 widow and two daughters survive. His only son 
 died in infancy. 
 
 In the prime of his life, in the maturity of his 
 powers, Mr. Norton's health began to fail. A 
 year of travel abroad was of benefit to him, but 
 after his return it was found that he was suffering 
 from a fatal disease. A lingering illness ensued, 
 which he bore with heroic patience and endur- 
 ance. Never man faced the great conqueror 
 more bravely than he. His soul rose triumphant 
 over pain, and the old spirit flashed out even in 
 paroxysms of almost mortal agony. His many 
 friends will ever remember those last days at 
 his beautiful summer home in Wisconsin, on the 
 shore of Lake Geneva, where, though his form 
 was wasting away before their eyes, the man him- 
 self was unchanged, and smiled and talked as of 
 yore. On the seventeenth of September, 1896, 
 he fell peacefully asleep. 
 
 E. G. M. 
 
 Chicago, November 30, 1896. 
 
VERSE. 
 
PARTING ODE. 
 Air. — Auld Lang Syne. 
 
 TT^ULL many a song the years have taught, 
 
 -*- Yet only one sad strain ; 
 
 Full many a sweet experience brought, 
 
 Yet one last hour of pain ; 
 And now with voices wont to blend 
 
 In happy glees of yore, 
 We tell the joys, we mourn the end, 
 
 Of days that are no more. 
 
 Those years were summer-fields of flowers, 
 
 And while we culled we sighed 
 To clip the wings of happy hours, 
 
 And there forever bide ; 
 But comes the hum of toiling bands ; 
 
 And floral joys we yield, 
 To give the strength of willing hands 
 
 In Earth's great harvest-field. 
 
 The social bonds, the blended aim, 
 
 That knit our souls in one ; 
 The daily task, the joy that came 
 
 With duties fitly done, — 
 All, all we leave within the walls 
 
 Whose shadows cast no gloom, 
 And pass to where the conflict calls, 
 
 And singly reach the tomb. 
 
4 FRAGMENTS IN VERSE. 
 
 The saddest, yet the gladdest day ; 
 
 For now the hope is sweet 
 Of winning chaplets fair to lay 
 
 At our Kind Mother's feet : 
 And in our hearts the gentle spell 
 
 Of memory ne'er shall fail, 
 But ever stay the last farewell 
 
 To Sixty-Five and Yale. 
 
 New Haven, 
 
 June, 1865. 
 
ABRAHAM LINCOLN. 
 In Memoriam. 
 
 Sung by the Yale College Glee Club, 1865. 
 
 "\ li 7EEP ! weep for the noble dead. 
 * * Spent be the fount of the tears we shed ; 
 
 Hushed be our gladness, 
 
 To mourning and sadness, 
 Though sacred our faith in the soul that hath fled. 
 
 Dead ! Dead ! Hath he tilled his field 
 Only to fall ere the harvest-yield ? 
 
 God who recordeth, 
 
 He fitly rewardeth, 
 And Faith sees the meed of his labors revealed. 
 
 Well, well hath his part been wrought. 
 Nations by such unto wisdom are taught ; 
 
 Single to duty, 
 
 He wore the high beauty 
 Of holiness, — mighty to do what he ought. 
 
 Long, long shall his name be bright, 
 Blessed by the millions he led to the light ; 
 
 Hallowed by ages 
 
 Embalmed in the pages 
 Of history, long shall it symbol the right. 
 
FRAGMENTS IN VERSE. 
 
 Mourn ! Mourn! Toll the slow sad bell ; 
 Thunder the guns — for a chieftain he fell — 
 
 Drape the broad highway 
 
 And still the rude by-way, 
 And droop the old flag he hath loved so well. 
 
 Mourn ! Mourn ! yet the slow sad bell 
 Must have a hope-giving tone in its knell ; 
 
 Trust we our sorrow 
 
 May bloom on the morrow : 
 For God, though He smite, doeth all things well. 
 
CHICAGO YALE ALUMNI SONG. 
 Air. — Auld Lang Syne. 
 
 "\^7HAT though my blood be bounding now, 
 " " And years have tempered thine, 
 And ashes be upon thy brow, 
 
 And locks of youth on mine ; 
 We '11 find for every difference still 
 
 Nepenthe in the wine 
 That sparkles in the cup we fill 
 
 To pledge the days Lang Syne. 
 
 If there 's a chill upon thy heart, 
 
 Then here 's a heart aglow, 
 To give thee back before we part 
 
 The warmth of long ago ; 
 And ne'er a voice around the board 
 
 But has accord with thine, 
 To blend in every cheering word 
 
 The tones of Auld Lang Syne. 
 
 Then let there be no seeming here 
 
 Of pleasure lightly quaffed, 
 But fill thy glass with kindly cheer, 
 
 And take an honest draught ; 
 And find for care and every ill 
 
 Nepenthe in the wine 
 That sparkles in the cup we fill 
 
 To Yale and Auld Lang Syne. 
 
 1868. 
 
THE OLD BRICK ROW. 
 
 Read as an " Anonymous Poem " at the Second Annual 
 
 Banquet of the Chicago Yale Association, 
 
 December, 1868. 
 
 T AIN'T no poet, — least-ways not 's I knows on ; 
 ■*■ And mebbe 't ain't no use to make believe ; 
 For when my notions git their party clo'es on 
 
 The set ain't snug and somehow don't deceive. 
 But sence I 've been a settin' here, I 've got 
 
 A sorter sense of turkey mixed with goose ; 
 And mebbe that accounts for why I 've strut 
 
 Into a vacancy that fits me loose. 
 
 I ain't a goin' to take no text to talk on — 
 
 That 's too confinin' for a healthy rule — 
 I 'd just as soon pick out a board to walk on 
 
 If I was student in a dancin' school. 
 And then again it kinder seems to me 
 
 A poet had n't oughter have directions, 
 But go ahead and travel ruther free, 
 
 And not be tied to makin' close connections. 
 
 And so I 'm up to talk without a toast ; 
 
 And first : good feelin' squares a meal, and hence 
 A vittle 'pears to satisfy ye most 
 
 When friends dip in and help themselves ; and sence 
 We 've cum together on that plan, let 's jest 
 
 Forgive the dishes for the names they 've got, 
 And 'low our furrin cider 's 'bout the best 
 
 We ever tasted, whether 't is or not. 
 
THE OLD BRICK ROW. g 
 
 However, seems to me, 't ain't no gret matter 
 
 Jest what the food is or jest how it 's dressed. 
 The pith of this meal ain't served on a platter, 
 
 It 's what each of us brought here in his breast. 
 Jest like it ain't the object in a Christian 
 
 To take Communion and then bow his head, 
 And shet his eyes and ask himself the question 
 
 How old the wine is, or who baked the bread. 
 
 We 've all been down to Yale and been to school there, 
 
 And on one pint I guess we 're all united : 
 They either make a wise man or a fool there ; 
 
 And as I 'm told the fools hain't been invited 
 To come to tea to-night, I ruther guess 
 
 It 's safe to say the sense of this here meetin' 
 Is 'bout unanimous for nothin' less 
 
 Than a right out old-fashioned fam'ly greetin'. 
 
 That's the idee : so fill your tumblers up. 
 
 The Lord that let ye go to Yale 'n the fuss place 
 '11 take the pisen out of every drop 
 
 Ye drink to her and save ye from a wuss place. 
 (And every parson 's 'lowed to take a hand in 
 
 Under a sorter special silver rule,) 
 Fill up, and drink the toast I give ye standin' — 
 
 The red brick buildin's where we went to school ! 
 
REUNION POEM. 
 
 Read at the Third Annual Banquet of the Chicago 
 Yale Association on December 21, 1869. 
 
 JDOETA when nascitur, beaucoup nonjit, 
 ■*■ That 's Latin, I fancy ; and this is the gist 
 Of the classical saw of its mystery shorn, — 
 When poeta, a poet, is nascitur, born, 
 He 's not fit for beaucoup, very much, and if so it 
 May be that a poem may be like a poet 
 Unfit for beaucoup, and still be by the turn 
 Of the same vice versa obliged to be born. 
 
 When Adam, accounted the first in his class, 
 Falling into bad company, brought it to pass 
 That his term was cut short by a sudden vacation, 
 And gained for himself premature graduation, 
 On him and his heirs, for his sins of commission, 
 Was laid, it is said, this relentless condition : 
 To labor ; to live by the sweat of the brow 
 In a field that requites to the laborer's plough 
 But the thistle and thorn for the laborer's bread, 
 And a grave in the furrow to be for his bed. 
 'T was a terrible curse ; and it follows, perforce, 
 That as we were in Eden by proxy, of course 
 By proxy we tasted the apple, and we 
 (Since quifacitper alium facit per se) 
 Are enduring in person the curse that befell 
 Of labor unending in peril of Hell. 
 
REUNION POEM. 1 1 
 
 Now I fancy sometimes — though I wish in a word to 
 
 Disclaim any hint to the person referred to — 
 
 If Adam in Eden had tended a vine, 
 
 And gathered the vintage and carried the wine 
 
 To his desert of exile, and stolen a draught, 
 
 In the respite of toil at his wearisome craft, 
 
 To lighten the labors with heaviness laden, 
 
 And nourish his soul with the juices of Eden, 
 
 He then had not lost all the joys of the garden, 
 
 And might have transmitted to us with the burden 
 
 Entailed by his ill-advised venture in fruit, 
 
 Some happy device of avoidance to suit. 
 
 But Adam was new ; into Paradise cast, 
 
 A man all at once and without any past, 
 
 And was in his innocence led by his wife 
 
 Into some indiscretions, which later in life 
 
 He doubtless regretted, and wherefore should we, 
 
 In the light of our larger experience, be 
 
 Restrained by the law of this case nisi prius 
 
 From choosing the free-thinker's motto, "Nullius 
 
 Addictus jurare in verba magistri," 
 
 And working our will with the facts of our history. 
 
 Let the precedents moulder ! Enough let it be, 
 That we know of an Eden, far down by the sea, 
 Where we gathered the fruit when no temptress was 
 
 near, 
 And gleefully tended the vine of good cheer, 
 Till we passed as of old from the beautiful gardens, 
 To measure our strength with humanity's burdens. 
 We 've grappled the present ; what blame if we now, 
 Leaving thistle and thorn and the profitless plough 
 
12 FRAGMENTS IN VERSE. 
 
 In life's barren furrow, take respite at last, 
 
 Give the sweat of our brows to a breeze from the past, 
 
 And dream still again that our Eden is here, 
 
 As we mingle the drops from its vine of good cheer. 
 
 From many a quest, like the wide-scattered brood, 
 
 Who have heard the home-call in the meadow and wood, 
 
 And flock to the Mother and far from the nest 
 
 Find home 'neath her wings in the warmth of her breast, 
 
 We have gathered to-night at the call of our Mother, 
 
 To hold the communion of brother with brother. 
 
 Outside is old Time — let him wait at the door ; 
 
 Let him plume his gray wings till the revel is o'er. 
 
 We have stolen his glass — let us clog the quick sand 
 
 With the wine of Lang Syne ere it come to his hand ; 
 
 Outside is the world, that implacable thing 
 
 That cheats with caresses to kill with its sting, 
 
 And feeds upon life it has fattened with hope. 
 
 Close the door upon all ; leave the morrow to cope 
 
 With the cares and anxieties bred of the day, 
 
 Nor long for the sun that recalls to the fray. 
 
 Here is memory's largess in bountiful measure, 
 
 And hearts that are hungry for feasting and pleasure. 
 
 Old Age, with his wrinkles half-hidden in smiles, 
 
 Hobnobbing with Youth that his fancy beguiles 
 
 Into seeming his own ; lusty Manhood aflush 
 
 With the ardors of old ; and hot Youth in the blush 
 
 Of life's morning. About us the redolent air 
 
 Is astir with the flitting of spirits that bear 
 
 To the banquet in exile the savors of home, 
 
 And the shadowy faces of memory come. 
 
 There is rustling of elms, and the sound of our feet 
 
REUNION POEM. 13 
 
 'Neath their murmuring arches in fancy we greet j 
 
 Our voices we catch in the echo of song, 
 
 And our features appear in the shadowy throng. 
 
 Does it seem? Is it fancy that sings in our ears? 
 
 Only memory that weaves in the woof of our years 
 
 Shining threads ? Have we wandered so far in the quest 
 
 From the roof-tree of home ? Have we laden the breast 
 
 That impatiently panted for armor and strife 
 
 So soon with the passionless purpose of life ? 
 
 Let it be but a dream — 't is a dream of delight, 
 
 And its hues are as fair though they fade with the night. 
 
 Let us laugh at each one who has whitened his hair 
 
 To the semblance of age ; let us merrily share 
 
 In the humor of him who would tell of his wife, 
 
 Or his children, and prate of the burdens of life ; 
 
 Let us hail the conceit with a rollicking zest, 
 
 If another bethink him to heighten the jest 
 
 With a word of his flock, or the mention of clients, 
 
 The chances of trade or the labors of science. 
 
 'T is Carnival hour ; let the merriment swell 
 
 To the madness of mirth ; we are under the spell 
 
 Of a spirit that recks not of reason or rule, 
 
 And the laughter of lips be the song of the soul. 
 
 Let us sing the moon down with a chorus of old 
 
 And herald the sun with the crimson and gold 
 
 Of days that we knew ; let us speed the bright wings 
 
 Of our hope once again — again drink of the springs 
 
 Where the sweet waters well through the moss of our 
 
 years. 
 What is life, that we render it tribute of tears, 
 And may not be glad if it take of our smiles ? 
 Or age, that we hail not the dream that beguiles 
 
14 FRAGMENTS IN VERSE. 
 
 Into life the gray ashes of youth once again 
 
 And wakes the mad fancies that sleep in the brain? 
 
 But a truce to my words that are idle and broken, 
 For sweeter than all is the word yet unspoken, 
 The soul of my song — the one word that we hail 
 In its fulness of meaning — the dear name of Yale. 
 Let me turn to her now in the infinite grace 
 Of her welcoming hand and the glow of her face, 
 And lovingly pencil a song to her praise 
 On this rose-tinted page of our album of days. 
 
 Yale that sittest by the sea ! 
 Shrine of Ages yet to be ! 
 Gratefully we turn to thee, 
 Dear Old Yale. 
 
 Mother of a mighty race ! 
 May the glory of thy face 
 Brighten through the years apace, 
 Grand Old Yale. 
 
 May thy courage falter never, 
 And the crown of high endeavor 
 Be upon thy brows forever, 
 Brave Old Yale. 
 
 May the skies be bright above thee, 
 And the dearest praises of thee 
 Be the prayers of those who love thee; 
 Dear Mother Yale. 
 
PROFESSOR PRECISE. 
 
 Read at the Fourteenth Annual Banquet of the 
 Chicago Yale Association on December 30, 1881. 
 
 "DROFESSOR PRECISE had a disciplined mind 
 
 -*■ And he loved mathematics and not mankind. 
 
 For years and years on each secular day 
 
 Of the College term he had taken his way 
 
 To his lecture-room, and for just an hour 
 
 Had held the Sophomore Class with a power 
 
 That never varied. The rest of the day, 
 
 And just two-thirds of the night, they say, 
 
 In his bachelor den, with the shades pulled down, 
 
 In a straight-backed chair and rectangular gown, 
 
 He silently ciphered, and year by year 
 
 Grew steadily more precise and queer. 
 
 Miss Phoebe Severe, sedate and prim, 
 
 Clearly adult and decidedly grim, 
 
 Kept a Finishing School for unfinished Misses, 
 
 And taught them science and manners ; and this is 
 
 The reason she too had a disciplined mind 
 
 And loved mathematics and not mankind. 
 
 Now it happened one morning, by good luck or bad 
 As the sequel may seem to be happy or sad, 
 That Miss Phoebe, alert every moment to hear 
 Any thoughtless expression not meant for her ear, 
 
1 6 FRAGMENTS IN VERSE. 
 
 Heard a Finishing Miss very foolishly say, 
 
 (Apropos of Geometry task for the day), 
 
 That she could n't see why a triangle should never 
 
 Have more than three corners — that is, if it ever 
 
 Should want 'em ; and this incidental remark 
 
 Of the sceptical Miss, like a mischievous spark 
 
 In a basket of shavings, lay smouldering deep 
 
 In the mind of Miss Phoebe, awake and asleep, 
 
 Till it kindled a strangely disquieting doubt 
 
 That her faith in Geometry failed to put out. 
 
 Full many a year had she taught to her school 
 
 The literal truth of each orthodox rule, 
 
 And never before had she harbored a thought 
 
 Disloyal or false to the rules that she taught ; 
 
 But now with a vague unrest she pined, 
 
 For the spirit of doubt disturbed her mind, 
 
 And a voice pursued her by night and by day 
 
 That whispered in true diabolical way, 
 
 " Triangles may vary ; there may be a lot 
 
 Of two-comered — ten-cornered, triangles; why not?" 
 
 And one morning she 'woke from a dream to recall 
 
 Triangles without any corners at all. 
 
 At last, like a vine feeling 'round for an oak, 
 
 She conquered her pride and set out to invoke 
 
 The aid of Professor Precise of the College ; 
 
 And knowing him not of her personal knowledge, 
 
 She ventured because it had come to pass 
 
 That the Finishing School knew the Sophomore Class. 
 
 Professor Precise was a bashful man. 
 
 He blushed, he stammered, he almost ran ; 
 
 And first, in his utter confusion, he said 
 
 He had seen a triangle as round as his head, 
 
PROFESSOR PRECISE. if 
 
 And then he explained by the rule of three 
 
 That the sides and the angles must always be 
 
 Equi-dentical — meaning of course equi-numerous — 
 
 And fell into other mistakes equi-humorous. 
 
 But soon, being filled with his theme, or perhaps, 
 
 Since learned professors are still human chaps, 
 
 Having slyly inspected the arid Miss Phoebe, 
 
 Who was, to be sure, not exactly a Hebe, 
 
 To the question of sex he was wholly blind, 
 
 And saw but a neuter inquiring mind. 
 
 Then with diagram, rule, and exact demonstration, 
 
 He led her right on to the grand consummation 
 
 Of all her desires, a faith without flaw 
 
 In conventional views of triangular law. 
 
 Here the worthy Professor of course should have paused 
 
 Content with the happy effect he had caused ; 
 
 But his pure mathematical soul was ablaze 
 
 With the ardor of science, and on through the maze 
 
 Of Geometry, — plane, analytical, spherical, — 
 
 Calculus, — plain, obscure, and chimerical, — 
 
 Dark Trigonometry, wild Conic Sections, 
 
 And on in some other enticing directions, 
 
 He led the rapt maid at a perilous pace, 
 
 Nor paused till he reached the most dangerous place 
 
 In all mathematics ; and then, ah, woe ! 
 
 He stabbed her faith with a ruthless blow ; 
 
 For he clearly proved by figures and lines, 
 
 Parabolas, cones, and technical signs, 
 
 That two mathematical lines may tend, 
 
 For ever and ever and world without end, 
 
 Right toward each other and yet never meet. 
 
1 8 FRAGMENTS IN VERSE. 
 
 Alas for Miss Phcebe ! she fell at his feet 
 In a deathly swoon ; and, hearing her fall, 
 The Sophomore Class came in from the hall, 
 Passed a vote of regret, not a man voting nay, 
 Then folded her neatly and bore her away. 
 
 'Twas a terrible shock, and although she "came to," 
 
 Perceptibly paler and slimmer she grew ; 
 
 The doubt that once tortured her soul had fled, 
 
 But another and darker had come in its stead. 
 
 She had taught her Misses that lines would meet 
 
 If they kept converging, and now this neat 
 
 And plausible doctrine had been assailed 
 
 By a master-mind, and reason had failed 
 
 To repel the attack. There was nothing sure ; 
 
 Science was shaken and insecure ; 
 
 And as faith in her rules began to wane, 
 
 She grew to feel that she lived in vain. 
 
 Now mark the result, and blame her who can ; 
 As she turned from science she turned to man ; 
 And her heart, that had almost gone to seed, 
 Seemed budding again, and then indeed 
 She longed as only a spinster can, 
 And so, in like manner, she laid a plan. 
 
 She saw the Professor and begged for a pass 
 
 To the lectures he gave to the Sophomore Class ; 
 
 He hemmed and he hawed, but he could not escape her, 
 
 And so every day, with her pencil and paper, 
 
 She sat and took notes of the man and the lecture, 
 
 Then lingered behind with some crafty conjecture 
 
PROFESSOR PRECISE. 
 
 19 
 
 That needed a word from the worthy Professor, 
 Who kindly complied, and seemed never to guess her 
 Deep-laid design, though the Sophomore Class, 
 Gently closing one eye, offered odds on the lass. 
 
 One evening Miss Phoebe, now desperate grown, 
 
 Remained after lecture and all alone 
 
 With the simple Professor, and as she partook 
 
 Of the banquet of reasons right out of the book, 
 
 And the sweet logarithmical flow of soul, 
 
 She felt she had almost reached her goal, 
 
 For he seemed to be conscious at last of her gender 
 
 And stated the rules in a tone almost tender. 
 
 She heeded ; and said in a winsome way, 
 
 That she doted on science, and that, each day, 
 
 As she felt that her dotage was shared by another, 
 
 And the lines of their lives were approaching each other, 
 
 Of figures and facts she had fonder grown, 
 
 Till she really feared, as she blushed to own, 
 
 That she lived, alas, too much in defiance 
 
 Of social demands and too single to science. 
 
 Having sped her arrow thus tipped with brass, 
 
 She waited in hope, and the Sophomore Class, 
 
 Looking in at the window, held its breath, 
 
 And all for a moment was still as death — 
 
 So still, in fact, that Miss Phoebe could hear 
 
 The Professor's old watch ticking loud and clear 
 
 In his waistcoat. She thought 't was his heart beating 
 
 high 
 With reciprocal passion and ecstasy, 
 And graciously waiving a formal request, 
 
20 FRAGMENTS 77V VERSE. 
 
 Considered it settled, and sank on his breast ■, 
 And then, as he stammered, " Oh, my ! Miss Severe ! " 
 She lovingly murmured, " Yes, thine — never fear." 
 He reeled, he declared 't was " a matter of weight," 
 But she whispered, " not long," and suggested the date ; 
 And the Sophomore Class, rushing in apropos, 
 Pronounced it a bargain and quite comme infant, 
 So it gave him away with a blessing and cheer, 
 And the Finishing School had a wedding that year. 
 
SAY YES, PETITE. 
 
 O AY yes, Petite, to love's appeal, 
 *~* And take me — and the chances : 
 In sweet communion let us feel 
 The force of circumstances. 
 
 We '11 take a furnished house, my dove, 
 Let Stanton take our orders ; 
 
 And then I '11 take my comfort, love, 
 And you shall take some boarders. 
 
 Then shall my usefulness appear, 
 
 And your devotion shine ; 
 For I '11 collect your bills, my dear, 
 
 And you shall settle mine. 
 
 We '11 keep no help, with petty steals 
 
 To eat up all the profit ; 
 But you shall gayly cook the meals 
 
 And have the credit of it. 
 
 At Grace Church you shall take a pew 
 
 And go there on a Sunday, 
 To better fit yourself to do 
 
 Your washing on a Monday. 
 
22 FRAGMENTS IN VERSE. 
 
 You '11 find me slow to interfere — 
 Save in my own behalf ; 
 
 And never have to want, my dear, 
 Unless I want to have. 
 
 And should you falter in the strife, 
 Or fail and fall in trouble, 
 
 I '11 then consent to single life 
 In preference to double ; 
 
 And cheerfully my footsteps bend 
 Along some other track, 
 
 Until your circumstances mend 
 And gently win me back. 
 
 So come to me, my little elf, 
 My sweeter sweet than honey ; 
 
 And bring me but your charming self, 
 And just a little — substance. 
 
 Chicago, 1872. 
 
THE ONE-EARED MAN TO THE ONE-EYED 
 MAID. 
 
 OINCE thou an eye for aye must lack 
 w -' And I an ear for e'er must miss, 
 That we should marry seems to smack 
 Of common sense as well as bliss. 
 
 Happy the wife may hope to be 
 Who goes through life a little blind ; 
 
 And lucky man, perchance, is he 
 Who, marrying, leaves an ear behind. 
 
 One eye to note my daily way 
 
 May give thee more content than two ; 
 
 And though thy voice is sweet to-day, 
 Yet, on the whole, one ear will do. 
 
 Weird though I look, whate'er betide, 
 
 I '11 never be two-eared for thee, 
 And I should never wish my bride 
 
 To have or be too wise for me. 
 
 Then let us hasten to apply 
 
 This one idea, sweet one-eyed dear, 
 
 And thou shalt cease to mourn an eye 
 And I '11 no more lament an ear. 
 
I 
 
 TO MY NEIGHBOR. 
 
 'VE a neighbor — such a neighbor - 
 Just as good as she can be ; 
 
 (Which is all one can expect of 
 Her or any other she). 
 
 She is fairer — somewhat fairer — 
 Than a host of plainer folk ; 
 
 And she has a certain manner 
 Not intended to provoke. 
 
 When she smiles her face relaxes 
 (Just as you 'd expect it to) 
 
 And assumes a pleased expression 
 (As of course it ought to do). 
 
 When she speaks her voice is vocal 
 (As a voice should always be) 
 
 And her eyes are not defective 
 (Or at least they seem to see). 
 
 Such a charmer is my neighbor ; 
 
 And I always rave like this 
 When I venture to describe her — 
 
 As is due to any miss. 
 
TO E. J. G. 
 
 T_T E was a plausible oculist man 
 ■*■ A And she was a cross-eyed maid, 
 And scanning her face with a critical scan, 
 In a positive voice he said : 
 
 " For years I 've studied the organ of sight, 
 
 And rarely admit surprise ; 
 But really I never have met with quite 
 
 Such a beautiful pair of eyes. 
 
 " Of eyes attractive I 'm sure I 've seen 
 A million, — or more, if you please, — 
 
 But never were eyes of woman, I ween, 
 Attracted each other as these. 
 
 " I 've seen them crossed at every angle 
 
 Acute, obtuse, and right ; 
 I 've seen them lose in a hopeless tangle 
 
 Their kinky lines of sight. 
 
 " But the genuine spiral cross has never 
 
 Before been submitted to me. 
 I 've heard of it, read of it, dreamed of it ever, 
 
 And now, thank Heaven, I see." 
 
26 FRAGMENTS IN VERSE. 
 
 She came and went and he treated the case, 
 And talked of her wonderful eyes, 
 
 And when he had cured the defect in her face 
 She gave him her heart for his prize. 
 
 But faultless optics no charm possessed 
 
 For this singular oculist man ; 
 His interest waned, and she passed into rest 
 
 By the usual drug-store plan. 
 
TO EUGENE FIELD. 
 
 "pORGIVE, dear youth, the forwardness 
 -*- Of her who blushing sends you this, 
 Because she must her love confess, 
 Alas ! Alas ! A lass she is. 
 
 Long, long, so long, her timid heart 
 Has held its joy, in secrecy, 
 Being by nature's cunning art 
 So made, so made, so maidenly. 
 
 She knew you once, but as a pen 
 In humor dipt in wisdom's pool, 
 And gladly gave her homage then 
 To one, to one, too wonderful ; 
 
 But having seen your face, so mild, 
 So pale, so full of animus, 
 She can but cry in accents wild, 
 Eugene ! Eugene ! You genius ! 
 
THE OLD STORY. 
 
 Read before the Chicago Literary Club in 
 November, 1876. 
 
 A BARK long tossed on a restless sea, 
 ■^*- Bearing a soul to its destiny, 
 
 Drew near to an unknown land. 
 But darkness hung on the shore like a cloud, 
 Wrapping land and sea in a sombre shroud, 
 And the land sent forth no voice, no light 
 To the sea ; but the land lay dead in the night, 
 
 And the waves lay dead on the sand. 
 
 And the soul looked forth disquieted, 
 And saw no beacon or land ahead, 
 
 And the soul said, Oh ! never before 
 On the changeful sea came a starless night 
 But the dawn came out of it, bringing the light ; 
 And never was harbor could win this sail 
 From the open main, the wave, and the gale : 
 
 But what of this night and this shore ? 
 
 The sea sang oft of a port to be made, 
 
 Where the sails are furled and the waves are laid 
 
 In a slumbrous calm for aye, — 
 Of a radiant land that stretches away 
 
THE OLD STORY. 29 
 
 In limitless realms of endless day, 
 Where for ever and ever the soul shall reign 
 In shining city and fruitful plain, 
 Under a smiling sky. 
 
 And oft when the day was chill and dark 
 The North Wind came to this drifting bark, 
 
 With a tale of a wreck to be 
 On the shore of a barren and silent land, 
 Where ships lie rotting upon the strand, 
 And the brave and beautiful souls they bore 
 Have perished for ever, and evermore, 
 
 As the light of a torch in the sea. 
 
 Ah ! what know the waves that pause at the beach, 
 Or what can the circling sea-winds teach 
 
 Of the land beyond the tide, — 
 What shapes of death or what forms of life, 
 What peace unbroken or endless strife, 
 Gray wastes of desert or fields of bloom, 
 Eternal day or Oblivion's gloom, 
 
 That curtain of cloud may hide ? 
 
 'Twixt promise and warning came furtive doubt 
 On restless wing, and hovered about 
 
 This desolate soul of man. 
 And all unseen, from out of the realm 
 Of Mystery, came and stood at the helm 
 The pilot that here on the lonely shore 
 Had waited this bark and the soul it bore, 
 
 Since ever the world began. 
 
30 FRAGMENTS IN VERSE. 
 
 And so this waif on a pitiless tide — 
 
 This bark with its soul and the ghostly guide — 
 
 To the beach came silently. 
 And some there are by whom it is said 
 The soul in that wreck on the sand lies dead ; 
 And many who dream that it evermore lives 
 Somewhere in that shadowy land that gives 
 
 No mariner back to the sea. 
 
RHYMING LETTERS FROM ABROAD. 
 
ALGIERS. 
 
 " A LETTER from Africa ! Ah ! " you will say, 
 
 "*■■*■ " A voice in the wilderness crying " — but stay ; 
 Don't pity me now, time was, it is true, 
 When a touch of that sentiment clearly was due 
 To the exile from home, — when the rollicking sea 
 Was having its will of him shamefully ; 
 But now, thank God, whose omnipotent hand 
 Hath set bounds to the sea and made solid the land, 
 That season is past, and the tide of emotion, 
 That 's subject to change, like the tides of the ocean, 
 The balance of trade, or the current of fashion, 
 Now sets toward you — and you have my compassion. 
 Poor fellow ! You linger at home amid friends, 
 Where pleasure solicits and comfort attends, 
 And yet cannot know as at last I know 
 The uttermost happiness here below. 
 I 've found it, and not — you may learn with surprise — 
 In the balm of the air and the sunlit skies, 
 The fragrance of flowers, the orange and palm, 
 The freshness of verdure, the color and calm 
 Of this tropical shore, but, thanks to old ocean, 
 In the fact that it has no perceptible motion. 
 Let the wind sigh low or in tempest roar, 
 Let it blow where it listeth. I care no more ; 
 I smile at the billows and scoff at the blast 
 From the deck of a continent anchored fast. 
 
 3 
 
34 FRAGMENTS IN VERSE. 
 
 And this is the land of the boundless wastes 
 Where the lion is free to indulge his tastes 
 In mutton or men as the case may be ; 
 Where the gentle elephant flutters free, 
 Finding in liberty purer joys 
 Than come from peanuts and half-price boys ; 
 Where the oldest families don't put on 
 Fine airs or anything else, and ton 
 Is something unknown ; where each missionary, 
 No matter how humble his birth or how scary 
 His doctrine, or whether he seek it or not, 
 Is taken right into society — hot. 
 This is matter of fact, but 't is equally true 
 That I cannot believe it from this point of view, 
 Where, snugly ensconced in the best of hotels 
 I live at mine ease amid civilized swells, — 
 Where a waiter from Germany, coming to me 
 With a plate of the soup of the Chef de Paris, 
 At to-night's table d'hote in the salle a manger, 
 In avoiding a Lord who obstructed the way, 
 Unluckily tripped and bespattered Her Grace, 
 Two Counts, and a Marchioness — all in full dress. 
 Surely here at Algiers one may safely allege 
 That the darkness of Africa lifts at the edge. 
 Here the Arab, as stately in rags as a king 
 In his mantle of gold, hardly deigning to fling 
 On the dog-of-a-Christian a glance of scorn, 
 Stalks by in his barefooted pride, or is borne 
 Aloft, on the top of a load that surpasses 
 One's ready belief, by the smallest of asses ; 
 And whether he walks or is mounted in state 
 He carries the air of a ruler of fate, 
 
ALGIERS. 35 
 
 For he knows with a knowledge as clear as the day 
 That the only true Allah directeth his way. 
 Here the Moor sadly muses on glories departed, 
 The occasional Nubian chatters light-hearted, 
 And here, over all, with his hand on his heart, 
 But grasping a hilt, plays the Frenchman his part. 
 
 But a short time ago — as the passage of years 
 
 Records itself here — and the men of Algiers 
 
 Were the 'wickedest pirates — between you and me — 
 
 That ever cut throat, and the scourge of the sea, 
 
 So history says ; and I 've little ambition 
 
 To prove or disprove : I have no disposition 
 
 To ask of the native who scowls at me here 
 
 How his grandfather ranked as a bold buccaneer ; 
 
 I am far too polite, and besides, as a student 
 
 Of men and of things, I know when to be prudent. 
 
 But whatever her past, the Algiers that we know 
 
 In the matter of morals is quite comme ilfant, 
 
 Nor better nor worse than the average place 
 
 Where the tourist occurs ; for there 's no saving grace 
 
 Can enable a primitive race to withstand 
 
 The temptation of strangers with money in hand 
 
 Who are searching for everything queer and old, 
 
 Not knowing its value and careless of gold. 
 
 What wonder if sometimes the man in the shop, 
 
 Where in search of " antiques " you may happen to stop, 
 
 Should prize the old dagger that catches your eye, 
 
 Should recall with a perfectly natural sigh 
 
 How it came to himself through a very long line 
 
 Of remarkable ancestors, then should decline 
 
 To consider a sale, tell the pretty romance 
 
36 FRAGMENTS IN VERSE. 
 
 Of that wonderful gem in the hilt, and perchance, 
 
 Being overpersuaded, should finally sell 
 
 This very historical treasure for — well, 
 
 Say thrice what he paid for the same last week 
 
 To his neighbor who made it — and made it " antique " ? 
 
 But adieu to Algiers with its hills of green 
 
 And its bay of clear azure that lies between, — 
 
 A sapphire in emerald set, — and adieu 
 
 To the Arab, the Mosque, and Mahomet the true ; 
 
 This chapter of life I regretfully close 
 
 And go — for a season — forever — who knows ? 
 
NAPLES. 
 
 [" HAD a dream of Paradise, 
 A dream of opalescent skies 
 And waters flashing in the rays 
 Of summer suns, a purple haze 
 Of distant hills, a bending beach, 
 A shining city, where the speech 
 Of happy children blithe and gay 
 With rippling music fills the day, 
 And evening calls to softer strains 
 Beneath a moon that never wanes. 
 I saw this vision brightly beam 
 And called it Naples — in my dream • 
 
 I sailed, one later hapless day, 
 Into a dark and waveless bay 
 Beneath a pall of dripping clouds, 
 To shores that lay in misty shrouds, 
 And smelt an ancient city there, 
 That gave unstinting to the air 
 A perfume neither nice nor new, 
 And yielded later to the view 
 Of unfamiliar eyes a masque 
 Of Ruin smiling at his task, 
 And Life cajoling Poverty 
 With colored rags and minstrelsy ; 
 And thus I found, that cheerless day, 
 My Naples and her peerless bay. 
 
38 FRAGMENTS IN VERSE. 
 
 It matters not that other eyes 
 
 Have seen her under other skies 
 
 And found her fair. The sun may shine 
 
 For joy of other eyes than mine ; 
 
 The kindly breeze may waft away 
 
 From other nose that rich bouquet ; 
 
 It may not always rain all day ; 
 
 It may be given to those who stay 
 
 From year to year to see the break 
 
 Of washing-day, or haply wake 
 
 To note a paucity of fleas ; 
 
 It may — Oh ! anything you please 
 
 May chance in time ; but how can I 
 
 With easy conscience testify 
 
 To things unseen that might have been, 
 
 Or paint a never witnessed scene ; 
 
 Let Naples be whate'er she may 
 
 To other eyes another day, 
 
 My Naples signifies but rains, 
 
 Neuralgic and rheumatic pains, 
 
 Chills, colds, quinine, and mackintoshes, 
 
 Umbrellas, puddles, and goloshes. 
 
 Hard by the city — so 't is said — 
 Vesuvius lifts his ruddy head 
 And forms a spectacle sublime. 
 It may be so. In such a clime 
 A mountain at a mile or so 
 Is sometimes seen, and if it glow 
 With inexpensive heat and light, 
 Should be at least a welcome sight. 
 
ROME. 
 
 *"PHERE was once a double baby, — 
 Twins, you understand, or may be 
 
 Duplicates would be a better name. 
 'T was of that age known as tender, 
 And were mostly boys in gender, 
 
 But they had a future all the same. 
 
 For they floated down the Tiber — 
 Though it puzzles the subscriber 
 
 To explain exactly how or why — 
 And instead of being drownded, 
 On a point of land they grounded, 
 
 And ashore they scrambled high and dry. 
 
 There a wolf, maternal, lonely, 
 Yearning in her heart as only 
 
 Wolves can yearn for something to protect, 
 Found the boys and had compassion 
 In the good old fem'nine fashion, 
 
 Like a Christian of the strictest sect. 
 
 And the youngsters, being nourished, 
 Quite alfresco, grew and flourished, 
 
 And in time they founded there a town 
 Which by Remus' kind consent was 
 Named for Romulus, whose bent was 
 
 Rather more for glory and renown. 
 
40 FRAGMENTS IN VERSE. 
 
 So the tale runs, and 't is clearly- 
 True as tale can be, or nearly, 
 
 For I 've seen the town — no longer new - 
 And the river flowing through it 
 With the shore convenient to it ; 
 So you see the story must be true. 
 
 More than this, — if more is needed, 
 Which of course is not conceded, — 
 
 I have seen the wolf and twinlets twain, 
 Done in bronze or other metal, 
 And the grouping seems to settle 
 
 Any captious doubts that may remain. 
 
 But 't is hardly necessary 
 To my scheme epistolary 
 
 That I trace the history of Rome ; 
 So we '11 skip a score or more of 
 Centuries with all their store of 
 
 Great events, and to the present come. 
 
 " Do in Rome as do the Romans " 
 Is an adage old, but no man 's 
 
 Really bound to mind it in the least ; 
 Which is lucky, for indeed it 
 Would compel one, should he heed it, 
 
 To become a cabby or a priest. 
 
 Let me say in explanation 
 That the native population 
 
 Seems to run to holiness or horse ; 
 
ROME. 41 
 
 Just about one half the total 
 Taking to the sacerdotal, 
 
 And the other half to cabs, of course. 
 
 And although it 's not conceded 
 That so many priests are needed 
 
 Where so little politics is done, 
 It is clear as any crystal, 
 Or the style of this epistle, 
 
 As to cabs, there 's need of every one. 
 
 Not for priest alone or tourist, 
 
 But the fleas, — the very poorest, — 
 
 " Ride in Chaises " over here, I find ; 
 And although they 're but a billion, 
 Every single separate million 
 
 Wants a carriage to itself — d' ye mind? 
 
 JVst a carriage for the party 
 And a tourist a la car-te 
 
 (That 's for rhyme) is fun enough for fleas, 
 And the victim, Nolens volens, 
 Shares his cab and e'en his woollens 
 
 With the restless aborigines. 
 
 And the worst of this arrangement 
 Is the fact that no estrangement 
 
 Comes to rid him of his vulgar guests. 
 Whither he goes they will go too, 
 And he can't ex mero tnotu 
 
 Work a change of feeling in their breasts. 
 
42 FRAGMENTS IN VERSE. 
 
 But I think I hear you railing, 
 And of course it is a failing, 
 
 And I ought to note the things sublime ; 
 But I pray you wait a minute, 
 For the plan has method in it : 
 
 And will justify itself in time. 
 
 Better far to take the lowly 
 On our passage to the holy — 
 
 Working up the feeling by degrees — 
 Than to open, con amore, 
 With St. Peter's and its glory 
 
 And to feebly perorate on fleas. 
 
 Rising then to contemplation 
 Of the things of reputation, 
 
 Here 's the Forum well deserves a word, — 
 Just a mammoth excavation 
 And a scene of desolation, 
 
 Where the voice of Caesar once. was heard. 
 
 Oh, to see again the Templa 
 And the other fine exempla 
 
 Of the art that poets long have sung ; 
 And to hear the men that sat in 
 Council here and bandied Latin 
 
 As a free and easy mother-tongue ! 
 
 Think of men — outside of college — 
 Cracking jokes and swapping knowledge 
 In impromptu Latin prose, and each, 
 
ROME. 43 
 
 Even members from the very 
 Slummy districts, making merry 
 With the most punctilious parts of speech. 
 
 Yonder where the rector solemn 
 Sits upon a fallen column 
 
 With his eyes on Murray's pages bent, 
 'Rose a temple once to Castor, 
 Twin of Pollux, and a master 
 
 Of the dusky arts then prevalent. 
 
 And the girl from Boston, sitting 
 In a dress of Paris fitting 
 
 On the block of marble over there, 
 Marks the spot where young Augustus 
 " Mashed " the vestal virgins, just as 
 Youthful Gussies still do everywhere. 
 
 Here did Brutus, wily master, 
 Cassius and the envious Casca, 
 
 Plot to hasten hated Caesar's end. 
 Here Mark Antony, — to borrow 
 Shakespeare's language, — full of sorrow. 
 
 Came to bury, not to praise, his friend. 
 
 Let us spend an hour or two in 
 Merely glancing at the ruin 
 
 Of the Palace of the Csesars on the hill. 
 Where a deal of excavation 
 Gives a little intimation 
 
 Of a Roman ruler's domicil. 
 
44 FRAGMENTS IN VERSE. 
 
 Here 't is well — and customary — 
 
 To remark how temporary- 
 Are the works of puny mortal man, 
 
 And how very transitory 
 
 Are the power, and pomp, and glory 
 Of the life that 's measured by a span. 
 
 And of course we can't neglect on 
 This occasion to reflect on 
 
 Kingly Caesar dead and turned to clay ; 
 And to wonder if it may be 
 That he really can to-day be 
 
 Stopping holes to keep the wind away. 
 
 But it may be well to choose some 
 Other topic not so grewsome, 
 
 Or perhaps it will be next surmised — 
 And the thought is far from pleasing — 
 That we owe a fit of sneezing 
 
 To a pinch of Nero pulverized. 
 
VENICE. 
 
 T STAND in Venice — just as Byron did — 
 ■*■ A-thinking obvious thoughts of land and sea, 
 And mourn that he should first have stood amid 
 Her crumbling palaces, and made so free 
 With certain thoughts which now occur to me, 
 And used the very language I would fain 
 Have wrapped them in : Alas, that such as he 
 Should first have found the field and stol'n the grain 
 And that I can't with credit steal it back again. 
 
 I 'd like to stand upon the Bridge of Sighs — 
 
 If I could do it of mine own accord — 
 
 And see " from out the wave her structures rise," — 
 
 But that again 's exactly what milord 
 
 Records that he did, and I can't afford 
 
 To crib his vision from his point of view. 
 
 Alas ! why could n't he stay and be abhorred 
 
 In virtuous England, 'stead of saying adieu 
 
 To native land and coming here to sin anew? 
 
 What Venice was in that historic day 
 
 That dawned upon the glory of her prime, 
 
 Let others sing in more exalted lay ; 
 
 And leave to me, and this my careless rhyme, 
 
 The city of the tourist and the time. 
 
46 FRAGMENTS IN VERSE. 
 
 The gilded ruins of an age of gold, * 
 
 The lingering echoes of a strain sublime, 
 
 And this alone in splendor as of old, — 
 
 Th' unfading light that softly lies on scar and mould. 
 
 There is a time for memory and a mood 
 For chronicles and glimpses of the past ; 
 But here 's the fairest day that ever wooed 
 The spirit to itself, and o'er it cast 
 A chain of happy hours to bind it fast 
 In sweet forgetfulness of other days ; 
 And while its tinted lights and shadows last 
 I '11 vex my soul with no historic maze, 
 Nor thread with pedant's chart these still and watery 
 ways. 
 
 It is enough that on yon stately pile, 
 Bearing the graven shield that blazons yet 
 To heedless eyes, the pride that swelled a while 
 Within the breast of some forgotten pet 
 Of fickle fortune, sun and storm have set 
 In gold and gray and wrinkled fantasies 
 The seal of Time, the King : let me forget 
 The span of life, and let the hour that flies 
 Be to my soul the touch of passing centuries. 
 
 I see the wide lagoons a waste again, 
 Where beat the pulses of the sea alone ; 
 Then squalid huts of men, out cast of men, 
 The sails of Commerce seeking for her own. 
 The city rising slowly, stone on stone, 
 Beyond the reach of the incoming tide, 
 
VENICE. 47 
 
 And all the golden years to history known 
 Of thrift and valor wed and conquest wide, 
 And splendors fit to nourish an immortal pride. 
 
 Yet shall I see, this day, with vision clear 
 As ever Knight of War and Carnival, 
 The Soul of Venice. Forth, my gondolier, 
 And push thy prow adown the Grand Canal, 
 And past the Riva, past the Arsenal 
 And mimic park, far out from gleaming shore 
 Into the path of ships, till out of all 
 The dim and distant city come no more 
 The weary sounds and shapes of life : here stay thine 
 oar. 
 
RIVIERA. 
 
 : ' ONG I wandered, ever chilly, 
 ■*-^ Seeking warmth and finding not ; 
 Came at last to Riviera, 
 
 Most extremely favored spot, 
 Where the temperature has never 
 
 Yet been known to rise or fall, 
 And the straw hat blooms all winter 
 
 With the colored parasol. 
 Here in March I find the fig-tree 
 
 Putting forth its ample leaf — 
 Once considered rather dressy — 
 
 And the strawberry the chief 
 Diet of the poorer classes, 
 
 And the season growing late 
 For the toothsome new potato 
 
 And the green pea out of date. 
 Here at last I find the sunshine 
 
 Very bright and blazing hot, 
 Yet in spite of all I shiver, 
 
 Seeking warmth and finding not. 
 Can it be the dreaded Mistral 
 
 Sweeping down from Alpine snows ? 
 Hardly — when from morn to night and 
 
 Every day the South Wind blows : 
 
RIVIERA. 
 
 Can it be a bit of ague 
 
 Lurking somewhere in my breast 
 Smuggled from its home and mine in 
 
 The remote malarial west? 
 Ah ! full well I know the reason, — 
 
 Reason too express and clear 
 To be doubted for a moment, — 
 
 T is the English atmosphere. 
 
 As the flakes of snow that herald 
 
 Near approach of wintry weather, 
 Each so very like the other, 
 
 All inclined to drift together, 
 So the really truly English 
 
 Settle down upon the land, 
 And reduce the mean caloric 
 
 In the way they understand. 
 Gathered in a land of plenty — 
 
 Self-appointed lords of all, — 
 They consume the milk and honey, 
 
 And diffuse ice-cream and gall. 
 Here a little British nation, 
 
 Knowing but itself alone, 
 Very proud of the acquaintance, 
 
 Rears a little altar stone 
 With a litde mirror on it, 
 
 And on humbly bended knees, 
 Looking only on the mirror, 
 
 Worships only what it sees. 
 Here the truly British matron 
 
 Finds it very, very hard 
 That hotels are not exclusive, 
 
 49 
 
50 FRAGMENTS IN VERSE. 
 
 That the climate must be shared 
 With the native and his neighbors 
 
 And with even, if you please, 
 Us, the very awful, dreadful, 
 
 From beyond the rolling seas ; 
 And that really one can hardly 
 
 Find a soul that one can know — 
 Save at risk of one's relation 
 
 To the classes down below. 
 Oh, ye folk of London feature ! 
 
 What a weary world is this, 
 Where the plans of your Creator 
 
 Thus have gone so far amiss 
 That the upper class must labor 
 
 To maintain its social crown 
 Just because the lower orders 
 
 Will not labor to keep down. 
 But a truce to such reflections, 
 
 Lest I lose the safer path 
 Of the mere complacent tourist, 
 
 And perchance arouse the wrath 
 Of the friend at home — if haply 
 
 Friends and home remain to me — 
 Who with imitative ardor 
 
 Loves the thing he fain would be. 
 
 There 's another old resorter, 
 Quite a personage of note, 
 
 And a sort of standing target — 
 Here 's at him with anecdote. 
 
 Once upon a time, the Devil, 
 Quitting Paris for the day, 
 
RIVIERA. 5 1 
 
 Flitted to the Riviera 
 
 In his own convenient way. 
 He was seeking rest and quiet, — 
 
 So his explanation ran ; 
 But he really went on business, 
 
 Ergo, fibbed it like a man. 
 He had watched the tide of travel 
 
 From the north to southern skies 
 Grow in volume every season, 
 
 And had noticed with surprise 
 That his gains in that department 
 
 Did not seem to grow apace 
 With the winter population, 
 
 As of course should be the case. 
 He perceived that as the people 
 
 Felt the spell of Nature's smiles, 
 They became the less responsive 
 
 To his own peculiar wiles, 
 Seemed to lose their zeal in sinning, 
 
 With the truth were satisfied, 
 And in spite of all temptation 
 
 Still inclined to virtue's side. 
 Clearly he must now resort to 
 
 Measures very prompt and strong, 
 Learn how things had gone aright, and 
 
 Then proceed to set them wrong. 
 Long he pondered, with his finger 
 
 Laid beside his Roman nose, 
 And his eyes abstractly gazing 
 
 At his few peculiar toes, 
 Till at last he chuckled softly, 
 
 Like the villain in a play, 
 
52 FRAGMENTS IN VERSE. 
 
 Slapped his thigh as sailors do, and 
 
 Muttered to himself, " Je l'ai ! " 
 Which, in Christian, means " I have it ! " 
 
 Then he smiled the sort of smile 
 That he wears when Faust the tenor 
 
 Falls a victim to his guile, 
 And with spirits light and airy- 
 Sought the Prince of Monaco, 
 Took a lease, and let his contract, 
 
 Then had little more to do. 
 Monte Carlo grows in beauty, — 
 
 Saints and sinners pay the cost, — 
 All the world is freely bidden, 
 
 And the Devil plays the host. 
 Not, of course, in proper person, — 
 
 He has far too much at stake, 
 With a world of careless sinners 
 
 And the parsons wide awake, — 
 But his tried and trusty agents 
 
 Play the game and ply the rake ; 
 And on summing up the season 
 
 He has no complaints to make. 
 
PROSE. 
 
GEORGE WASHINGTON. 
 
 Read Before the Chicago Literary Club on 
 February 18, 1877. 
 
 EACH year as the 22d of February ap- 
 proaches, we are reminded that the Father 
 of his Country was originally born in a small way 
 and as a common infant. Waiving his peculiar 
 right to be born on the Fourth of July, he 
 modestly appeared in the most insignificant month 
 of the year, and at once devoted himself to the 
 serious business of life. So far as history informs 
 us, he had no great natural advantages over other 
 male children, and started on his career with no 
 special facilities for becoming President. 
 
 He was at that time of medium height, loose- 
 jointed, bald-headed, and inexperienced. He was 
 careless about his dress, and natural in manner, 
 impulsive and emotional, easily moved to tears, 
 but deficient in humor ; fond of rest by day and 
 excitement by night; simple in his tastes; 
 monotonously severe in his diet; free from 
 intemperance, profanity, pride, vainglory, and 
 hypocrisy. In short, he had no bad habits 
 which he could not reasonably hope to outgrow, 
 and no remarkable development of character or 
 
56 ADDRESSES. 
 
 intellect. Indeed, it is reported by some of his 
 nurses who still live, that at this period of his 
 life the Father of his Country had a soft spot in 
 his head. 
 
 He evinced at an early age those democratic 
 instincts which in later life made him the idol of 
 the people. He associated freely with the juvenile 
 produce of his father's slaves, sharing with them 
 the glory of mud-pies and other primitive forms 
 of keramic art, and winning their marbles as 
 cheerfully and unaffectedly as if the little picka- 
 ninnies had been germs of royalty or the off- 
 spring of archangels. His pride was in his game, 
 and not in his Caucasian blood. As a boy he 
 loved his fellow-beings without distinction of 
 color, and when he grew up and owned a good 
 many of them, he valued the blackest man as 
 highly as if he had been yellow or of some inter- 
 mediate shade — the market price being the 
 same. The natural feeling which prompted some 
 proprietors to think more of the lighter tints was 
 merged in the grand catholicity of his love for 
 mankind. 
 
 We now turn to an incident of his early life 
 which has been strangely overlooked by the 
 historians, but which deserves to be regarded as 
 a most significant event. When he was about 
 nine years old he became the possessor of a 
 hatchet. He saw in this not the emblem of 
 cruelty, — the tomahawk of the savage, — but 
 
GEORGE WASHINGTON. 57 
 
 the implement of industry ; and straightway ap- 
 plied himself to the study of its uses. In his 
 father's garden was a cherry-tree which bore no 
 figs ; and he heard a voice crying, " Cut it down ! 
 Why cumbereth it the ground ? " and another 
 voice, " Woodman, spare that tree ! " He thought 
 it might be spared, and he cut it down. 
 
 As he was about finishing his task he observed 
 his father approaching, and trimming a long 
 switch in a quiet and thoughtful manner. The 
 latter playfully asked George if he was fond of 
 chopping, and whether he intended to do much 
 more that day, and about how long he thought 
 it would take him to finish the orchard if he were 
 excused from morning prayers, and had his meals 
 sent out to him ; and then, recurring to the fallen 
 tree, he inquired, with considerable directness, 
 who cut it down. George perceived the change 
 in his father's manner, but kept on trimming the 
 butt with his hatchet, and observed in his childish 
 way that the curculio was a sore destroyer of 
 cherry-trees; that the frost sometimes cut off 
 vegetation with neatness and despatch ; and that 
 only the day before he had heard a neighbor's 
 boy bragging about a new hatchet. 
 
 At last, finding his father unimaginative, and 
 little given to speculative philosophy, he re- 
 marked that, inasmuch as he found himself un- 
 able to tell a lie successfully, he was convinced 
 that honesty, under the circumstances, was the 
 
5 8 ADDRESSES. 
 
 best policy, and he would frankly admit that the 
 performance which his father had just witnessed 
 was not an optical illusion ; and taking the pater- 
 nal hand, — or vice versa, — he entered the house. 
 
 In the parlor concert which followed, the 
 Father of his Country, prompted by the Grand- 
 father of his Country, executed the recitative, 
 staccato, and crescendo in admirable style, and, 
 without waiting for an encore, retired early to 
 the seclusion of his little bed, musing on the 
 past, and trusting that in this case history would 
 not repeat itself. 
 
 Thus, for a trifling impediment in his speech, 
 our hero was switched off the line of horticul- 
 tural industry into the example business. 
 
 Later in life, he was married to one Martha, the 
 Mother of her Country, an exemplary and stately 
 matron, who doubted that it was more blessed to 
 give than to receive, and compromised the mat- 
 ter by giving receptions. His wife, however, 
 with his farewell address and false teeth, belong 
 to the latter years of his life, and it is not pro- 
 posed at this time to trace the remoter conse- 
 quences of his birth. 
 
 Returning then to his childhood, are there not 
 some lessons to be drawn from its incidents which 
 are worthy of our study? When examined in the 
 light of this history how transparent are some of 
 the popular delusions of to-day ! He could not 
 tell a lie, — we have his own word for that, — and 
 
GEORGE WASHINGTON. 
 
 59 
 
 yet he succeeded in politics. Can we longer ad- 
 here to the modern doctrine of political neces- 
 sities? We learn, too, that notwithstanding 
 occasional exceptions to the rule, virtue hath 
 its own reward. George told the truth about 
 the cherry-tree, and suffered for a time in conse- 
 quence ; but to-day a great city bears his name 
 as a tribute to his truthfulness, and clings to the 
 truth with a faithfulness worthy of -its name. It 
 is easier to tear the babe from its mother, than 
 to get the truth from that city. He told the 
 truth and suffered ; but a grateful people period- 
 ically think of raising a monument to his mem- 
 ory, and he has bequeathed his name very 
 generally to the posterity of other patriots. 
 
 Of course, it is not intended by reference to 
 this grand example to indicate that Washington 
 might not have achieved immortality by other 
 means, or that no American youth can hope to 
 realize his district school ambition, save by com- 
 mencing on cherry-trees. We have moralized in 
 vain, if this is our conclusion. We rather choose 
 to believe that the method is unimportant if the 
 principle be followed; that it would probably 
 answer the purpose as well to rob a hen-roost or 
 steal a watermelon, provided, always, the deed be 
 confessed if necessary. Let the boys of to-day 
 study the example of this noble youth, who told 
 the truth because he could not tell a lie, and we 
 shall not lack material for Presidents. 
 
A PORTION OF THE OLD TESTAMENT 
 REWRITTEN. 
 
 Read before the Chicago Literary Club on 
 May 19, 1879. 
 
 SOME weeks ago a certain eminent divine, who 
 has yet the grace to be human, preached a 
 sermon on Ingersoll as a Bible-critic, and in 
 the course of his remarks frankly admitted that 
 the orthodox churches contained some members 
 who, by their bald and literal interpretation, were 
 not less inimical to the Scriptures than those who 
 openly attacked them. 
 
 He said that the Old Testament should be re- 
 garded and read, not as a veritable history, but 
 as a poem. This remark so impressed me that I 
 walked home in a brown study, and before reach- 
 ing my door had resolved to remedy, in some 
 measure at least, the error which the minister 
 had pointed out. 
 
 It was evident that the Old Testament was not 
 commonly recognized as a poem because it did 
 not look like one ; and that its parables and met- 
 aphors were lost to the general reader by lack of 
 suggestion in the narrative. Why should not I 
 rewrite the story in modern verse (which to the 
 
OLD TESTAMENT REWRITTEN. 6 1 
 
 multitude might seem a poem), and while adorn- 
 ing the tale point the moral here and there for 
 the instruction of those less versed in the myste- 
 ries of applied Scripture? 
 
 I felt that it was a grand conception ; and fear- 
 ing lest some other philanthro-poet should antic- 
 ipate me in the good work, I opened the family- 
 Bible and commenced upon the first chapter of 
 Genesis, thus : — 
 
 " In the beginning," — that is, as it were, 
 Along at first, — quite early, though of course 
 
 Not quite at first, but formerly, before 
 Some later efforts of creative force, — 
 
 and so on, the design being to show the very- 
 early creation of the heaven and the earth with- 
 out committing the text to any positive state- 
 ment as to the absolute beginning of time ; and 
 thus to avoid the first stumbling-block presented 
 by the old version. 
 
 It is perhaps needless to say that the work as 
 it progresses presents some technical difficulties. 
 Thus, in doing the book of the generations of 
 Noah, it requires some ingenuity to express in 
 perfect rhythm and faultless rhyme the compli- 
 cated fact that "Joktan begat Almodad, and 
 Sheleph, and Hazarmaveth, and Jerah, and Ha- 
 doram, and Uzal, and Diklah, and Obal, and 
 Abimael, and Sheba, and Ophir, and Havilah, 
 and Jobab : all these were the sons of Joktan." 
 
62 ADDRESSES. 
 
 I have found, however, that on such occasions 
 a metre formed by a peculiar combination of 
 Walt Whitman and the multiplication table an- 
 swered the purpose tolerably well, though the 
 result, I fancy, somewhat lacks the poetic fervor 
 and lofty inspiration of other passages. 
 
 But to illustrate by a few extracts the charac- 
 ter and purpose of the work, let us take, for in- 
 stance, the story of the tempting apple, or the 
 fall of man. 
 
 It is not easy to gather from the old version 
 just how the gift of the apple to Adam entailed 
 upon the race the annoyance of perspiration ; but 
 by changing the facts a little and the form a little 
 more the matter is made as plain as possible — 
 thus : — 
 
 As Eve took a walk in the Park one day 
 
 In the early forenoon of time, 
 A serpent came to her and thus he did say : 
 
 " Here 's yer apples now, three for a dime." 
 
 She turned to depart, but he pressed her to stay. 
 
 She lingered, — Ah ! there was her blunder, — 
 And, twirling her thumbs in a diffident way, 
 
 She murmured, " What 's apples, I wonder." 
 
 " Why, really," he said, " is it possible, madam, 
 You don't know ? Ah ! well, such is life ; 
 
 But I never supposed that a man like Adam 
 Would play such a trick on his wife." 
 
OLD TESTAMENT REWRITTEN. 6$ 
 
 " I see," she exclaimed ; " you mean that he 's had 'em 
 
 And never divided with me. 
 Pray help me, good sir, to get even with Adam." 
 
 " With pleasure, my lady,'' said he. 
 
 Now he carried his apples all strung on his tail ; 
 
 So he snapped off the end one, and said, 
 " Take it, lady, and seek the old man in the vale, 
 
 And put some hot coals on his head, 
 
 " By dividing the apple and giving him half — • 
 
 Thus doing him good for evil." 
 " An excellent plan," she replied, with a laugh, 
 
 And she merrily winked at the devil. 
 
 Then she hurried to Adam and borrowed his knife, 
 
 And cutting the apple in two, 
 Said, " Take a piece, darling, your own little wife 
 
 Has been waiting to share it with you." 
 
 He ate ; but the keen recollection of how 
 He had treated poor Eve made him wince, 
 
 And the coals on his head made the sweat on his brow 
 That has stuck to the race ever since. 
 
 In like manner the story of the Ark, which in 
 the original version is hard to understand and 
 extra hard to believe, when thus treated is as 
 simple as a nursery rhyme, and bears an obvious 
 moral, as will appear : — 
 
 Now Noah, being wondrous wise, 
 
 Foresaw a change of weather, 
 He built an ark of goodly size 
 
 And got his crew together : 
 
64 ADDRESSES. 
 
 Of sons and daughters, bugs and rats, 
 Pole-cats and polar bears, 
 
 White elephants, baboons, and bats, — 
 And all in happy pairs ; 
 
 And mated frogs and wedded ants, 
 And two of every species 
 
 Of living thing, except, perchance, 
 The water-snakes and fishes ; 
 
 And then he started on his trip, 
 
 Directed by the Fates, 
 And he was captain of the ship 
 
 And all the rest were mates. 
 
 Day after day they sailed about 
 Where never sail had been, 
 
 And all the time it rained without, 
 And Noah reigned within. 
 
 He had a store of proper food 
 And for a cook, his daughter, 
 
 Who had no lack of gopher-wood, 
 Nor far to go for water. 
 
 He sorted out the animals 
 With nice discrimination, 
 
 And prayed at stated intervals 
 For death — or ventilation. 
 
 And when the beasts inclined to prey 
 He kept the peace among 'em, 
 
 Preached them a sermon every day, 
 Gave out the hymns — and sung 'em. 
 
OLD TESTAMENT REWRITTEN. 65 
 
 At last to Ararat he came — 
 
 Released by saving grace — 
 Laid out a town upon the same, 
 
 And grew up with the place. 
 
 Moral. 
 
 Who lives a life of sanctity 
 
 Shall profit by his pains ; 
 For he will know enough, you see, 
 
 To go in when it rains. 
 
 But it is not alone in elucidating the text and 
 emphasizing its lessons that the new version is 
 useful. It serves to abstract and condense the 
 history in many cases. 
 
 Then there is much written of Samson ; but the 
 average reader retains only a confused recollec- 
 tion of his chief exploits ; and so for convenience 
 the history of this remarkable person is boiled 
 down into a few lines which contain the salient 
 points, thus : — 
 
 Samson's forte was catching foxes, 
 Dealing death and paradoxes, 
 Piling corpses up in car-lots, 
 Stealing gates and trusting harlots. 
 He was not a common one — 
 Quite a queer phenomenon — 
 But a misdirected razor 
 Cut him off in wicked Gaza. 
 
 Or at least it cut off his hair, which was about 
 all there was of him. 
 
 S . 
 
66 ADDRESSES. 
 
 And so I might go on with a mile or two of 
 well-intended rhymes, showing how the dry facts 
 of Bible history may be made juicy and nutritious ; 
 but the proprieties forbid us to claim for such a 
 purpose much of the time of a company gathered 
 for secular purposes and somewhat subject to 
 irreverent moods. 
 
 I hope to complete the work soon, though I 
 have lately encountered an obstacle which may 
 prove insurmountable ; for I have reached a point 
 where the metre requires a rhyme for Potiphar, 
 and the plan seems to demand an explanation, 
 acceptable to the modern metropolitan mind, of 
 the course pursued by Joseph on one occasion. 
 
 The first difficulty might perhaps be met thus : 
 
 In came the wife of Potiphar 
 And Joseph quickly got afar ; 
 
 but just why he did so I have not yet succeeded 
 in making clear and at the same time poetical. 
 
THE CONFESSIONS OF A MILLIONAIRE. 
 
 Read at the Chicago Literary Club Reception 
 of October 30, 1882. 
 
 " /'"VJR Federal Constitution," said my uncle 
 
 V-/ John, at the close of our quiet dinner, 
 " protects us in the pursuit of happiness. Let us 
 smoke. " 
 
 And as he lit his cigar and took the first whiffs 
 in the silence and perfect serenity due from the 
 smoker to his favorite brand, I looked at his 
 genial face, and reflected that without great 
 wealth or fame or exceptional gifts, he was 
 envied of men, and so I said to him, — 
 
 " Yes, in this free land the pursuit of happiness 
 is an open chase, but one in which the pursuer is 
 always baffled. 
 
 " Now you have followed the ignis fatuus till 
 your beard is gray; but have you ever over- 
 taken it?" 
 
 " Well," he said, " I have never caught the 
 flame in my hat, as some men are said to 
 have done, but I believe that I have at last come 
 within the circle of its light and warmth ; and if 
 you can restrain your talking propensities long 
 enough to hear me, and won't be too critical of 
 
68 ADDRESSES. 
 
 my post-prandial philosophy, I will give you a 
 little retrospect of the devious wanderings which 
 have brought me at sixty years to a position of 
 conscious superiority, in point of contentment 
 and happiness, to most persons in our plane of 
 life." 
 
 Of course I readily promised silence, and my 
 uncle John proceeded : — 
 
 " I am the more ready to talk with you some- 
 what at length upon this subject, and to give 
 you the benefit of my experience and observa- 
 tion, because I am satisfied that, as there is no 
 problem relating to this life alone more important 
 than this question of happiness, so there is none 
 through which men grope so blindly. 
 
 " There is in every community like ours a large 
 class of persons who are above the misery of 
 hunger, want, and most forms'of hardship, yet not 
 exceptionally fortunate in the general conditions 
 of life, who constitute the body of what we call 
 society. 
 
 " These people have the preparatory education 
 of the college and seminary, intelligence, con- 
 ventional courtesy and morality, self-respect and 
 ambition. These qualities commonly lead to a 
 fair competence, and secure a social position 
 entirely respectable. It is of the happiness pos- 
 sible to such people, and especially some of the 
 common errors of pursuit, that I am speaking." 
 
 "Then," said I, interrupting my uncle, "you 
 
THE CONFESSIONS OF A MILLIONAIRE. 69 
 
 propose to teach me how not to be happy. 
 That is an art which I have supposed myself 
 capable of learning without a master." 
 
 " No doubt, my boy," replied my uncle, who 
 was accustomed thus to rejuvenate me when he 
 set out to talk wisely ; " but, while I admit your 
 proficiency, you have not yet made all the mis- 
 takes open to you; and perhaps by warning I 
 may save you from blunders yet ' undreamt of 
 in your philosophy,' unless indeed you are so 
 wedded to your errors that, like love's follies, 
 they defy both precept and example. 
 
 " Of course you will hardly expect me to lay 
 down precise rules for the attainment of happi- 
 ness. I might perhaps give you one, — ' Be 
 virtuous and you will be happy,' — but I fancy 
 you would demand sub-rules for practical use, 
 and might even then complain of the onerous 
 conditions. 
 
 " Life is a labyrinth of many ways, and we gain 
 the true paths mainly by indirection, — by tracing 
 out others to find that they lead astray." 
 
 " But," said I, " is not all happiness a mere delir- 
 ium, — a mental condition largely independent of 
 will and effort?" 
 
 " No," he replied, " not the same condition of 
 which I am speaking. A drivelling idiot may 
 seem to be happy in that he has no capacity for 
 care or mental suffering; but he is not happy, 
 because he lacks the power to know and appre- 
 
•JO ADDRESSES. 
 
 ciate. A man is not sane merely because he 
 cannot know that he is insane, or awake simply 
 because he cannot be conscious of sleep. 
 
 " One may seem to find ecstasy in a grain of 
 opium ; but he is not happy in his dream, — he 
 simply dreams of happiness. If happiness were, 
 as you suggest, a mere delirium, then must the 
 world either abandon the pursuit, or consistently 
 multiply the means and forms of intoxication; 
 and the spell must be maintained : the judgment 
 must never wake to know that it has slept, or the 
 baseless fabric of the dream is gone. 
 
 " But to drift further with the current of your 
 question: I can see, of course, that there are 
 often found happy conditions of mind that seem 
 inherent. The world is full of laughing children 
 who appear to hold their gladness as a birthright ; 
 and there are men and women of such bright 
 and joyous spirit that they seem to see the sun 
 through every cloud ; and some, too, so maimed 
 and broken, so crushed by real affliction, that it 
 seems a mockery to talk to them of any rest but 
 in the grave, or point them to any hope but that 
 which is folded in the promise of death. 
 
 " But I must remind you that I am speaking, 
 not of the accidents of birth or temperament or 
 circumstances, but of the average man under 
 ordinary conditions of the individual and of so- 
 ciety, and am considering how far — or how 
 best — he may with the common opportunities 
 of life advance himself toward happiness. 
 
THE CONFESSIONS OF A MILLIONAIRE. "J l 
 
 " You will perhaps say that the churches point 
 the way. True, there is a faith which lifts the 
 spirit into a religious ecstasy, — a spiritual anaes- 
 thetic which steeps the soul in a painless dream 
 of happiness so sweet and so profound that it 
 knows no ills and seeks no remedy ; but to some 
 men such faith never comes, though earnestly 
 besought; and the half-faith that pervades soci- 
 ety and makes for righteousness at intervals is 
 not the solace of every hour nor the sufficient 
 help in all emergencies. 
 
 " I am not deriding the pulpit or disputing its 
 wide domain; but there is a field outside in 
 which the layman may preach the homely philos- 
 ophy of our daily life, and if the pulpit pronounce 
 the theme ignoble, reply with Pope, — 
 
 " ' For modes of faith let graceless zealots fight ; 
 He can't be wrong whose life is in the right.' 
 
 " However, I am preaching too long a sermon 
 as a prelude to the bit of personal history I 
 promised you, and which I intend to be a sort 
 of sermon in itself. 
 
 " Of course I really commenced the pursuit of 
 happiness at a very early age ; but it will serve 
 our present purpose if I introduce myself at 
 about your age, since it would do no good to 
 put up guide-boards at the corners you have 
 already turned. 
 
 "At twenty-five I was the usual boy of that 
 
^2 ADDRESSES. 
 
 age. I had not been out of college long enough 
 to realize how manifestly I had not completed 
 my education, and I had seen just enough of the 
 world to fancy that there was hardly a verdant 
 leaf in all my foliage. 
 
 " I might then have enjoyed a sort of happiness 
 in the fond consciousness of youth, health, and 
 ambition, but for the fact that I imagined myself 
 to be poor, and intuitively knew that I was a 
 bachelor. So I resolutely set about the removal 
 of these obstacles. As the way of trade was then 
 considered the shortest path to wealth, I found 
 employment in a mercantile house of some 
 prominence; and a little later, having then se- 
 cured an income sufficient to support about one 
 man and a quarter of modest wants, I met a lady 
 who, with the amiable propensity of her sex, 
 kindly allowed me to marry her. 
 
 " At thirty, I had gained a business footing which 
 relieved me of anxiety as to the means of life ; 
 and at thirty-five, I had reached a point where I 
 needed only a little philosophy to make me really 
 and consciously happy ; for I had then acquired 
 an income which enabled me to live well, though 
 not extravagantly, and to enjoy many things 
 which I had been accustomed to regard as the 
 far-off luxuries of life. 
 
 " I had the blessing of a good wife, and knew the 
 most exquisite of all human joys in the love of 
 children. 
 
THE CONFESSIONS OF A MILLIONAIRE. 73 
 
 " We had a respectable social position just out- 
 side the fashionable centre, and my work had not 
 then dulled my spirits or drawn me away from 
 the enjoyment of friends. 
 
 " As I look back to it now this was, or should 
 have been, the most delightful period of my 
 life. It was a time of comfort without display, 
 plenty without satiety, and simple pleasure with- 
 out pretense. 
 
 " But the insidious passion of the business world 
 had infected me: I was ambitious to become 
 rich, — sensationally rich. 
 
 " I had begun life with the hope of winning 
 enough to provide comfort and the leisure for 
 self-culture and rational enjoyment. But now 
 that I had accomplished this, I could not relin- 
 quish the purpose of gain. The things to which 
 at twenty-five I had aspired, when reached at 
 thirty-five seemed pitifully mean. I could afford 
 to live freely in a single house, but my neighbor 
 in the double house seemed to present a broader 
 front to the world and to fill the eye of the pub- 
 lic with a portlier presence. I could then well 
 afford the modest entertainment of my friends, 
 and could play the host at a quiet dinner with 
 genuine pleasure; but I wanted the sensation of 
 lavish hospitality. I did not crave wealth for the 
 mere love of possession ; I would not slave for 
 gold merely to hoard it. And so encouraging my- 
 self with the thought that I needed more merely 
 
74 ADDRESSES. 
 
 as a further means to some higher end, I em- 
 barked in new and absorbing enterprises, and after 
 a long period of wearing toil, of anxious days and 
 restless nights, of mental and spiritual starvation, 
 I found myself at fifty a miserable millionaire." 
 
 Here my uncle paused for a moment, and I ven- 
 tured to inquire at what point in the millions he 
 thought the average millionaire would logically be 
 driven to suicide as an escape from his money. 
 
 " I suppose," said he, " you mean to suggest 
 that because the wealth I have amassed brought 
 me disappointment it should by further increase 
 render life intolerable. You are hardly right. I 
 suffered not by the mere possession, but by the 
 process of acquisition; and I am disposed to 
 think that a man may find about as much dis- 
 appointment in one million as in ten, if he knows 
 how to go about it — as I did. 
 
 " What was my system? Well, I'll tell you. 
 
 " In the first place, I gave myself early in life 
 to a fatal error. I overestimated the power of 
 wealth to confer happiness. 
 
 " I saw about me on every hand men and women 
 who lived in apparent luxury — who were cer- 
 tainly free from the sordid cares which beset me 
 — and I said to myself, ' These people are happy. 
 They rejoice in elegant leisure, in the oppor- 
 tunity for charity, in the indulgence of refined 
 tastes, in the consciousness of conspicuous posi- 
 tion and social influence;' and I foolishly com- 
 
THE CONFESSIONS OF A MILLIONAIRE. 75 
 
 pared their lot with mine, and explained all 
 differences by the disparity in fortune: and so 
 I set out upon a weary pilgrimage to the shrine 
 of my false faith, only to reach it at last footsore 
 and disenchanted. 
 
 " I had youth, health, and ambition ; and with 
 these what glorious possibilities in my unspent 
 years of life ! but I sold them for a million, and 
 the sorry consolation that the world would not 
 perceive how badly I was cheated. 
 
 " The alchemy that would transmute base metals 
 into gold was the wild dream of another age ; but 
 we have found an alchemy that fuses into current 
 coin the best elements of life, — the music, poetry, 
 and passion that are the inheritance of youth 
 from untold centuries of human aspiration and 
 achievement. 
 
 " I well remember the day — my fiftieth birth- 
 day — when I made the inventory which first 
 assured me of the coveted sum, and how I 
 showed it to my good wife, and how she said, 
 ' Yes, John, it seems a great deal ; but somehow 
 I don't feel as rich as I did the day you bought 
 the pony for the boys.' 
 
 " Strange — was n't it — that after years of her 
 own carriage and ample purse she should recall 
 the poor little pony, bought long ago with the 
 savings of a modest income ? But, stranger still, 
 I could not banish it from my thoughts. 
 
 " I lay awake that night, reviewing the career of 
 
•]6 ADDRESSES. 
 
 a lifetime, summing up its gains and losses ; and 
 in the morning I arose confessedly a poor man. 
 
 " With a million of money I could buy nothing 
 but sustenance for a nature shrunken by neglect. 
 
 " I had gained nothing that a fool with inherited 
 money might not buy, nothing that the reverses 
 of a year or two might not sweep away, leaving 
 me poor indeed ; and I was a slave to care and 
 anxiety. 
 
 " Of the real treasures of the world — its art, 
 literature, culture, philanthropy — I had won no 
 share; they had enriched others while I had 
 been trading myself piecemeal for needless gold. 
 True, I had upon my walls admired paintings; 
 but I was conscious that I regarded them, like 
 the frieze or dado, merely as proper details of 
 house decoration. 
 
 " I had a library suitable to my house; but so 
 far as my intellectual needs were concerned, it 
 might as well have been stored in my warehouse. 
 
 " I gave the conventional patronage to opera 
 and oratorio, but listened to the music in a dull, 
 unprofitable way, hardly knowing the difference 
 between an overture and a fugue. 
 
 " In short, I found that for all the pleasures of 
 life that come to eye and ear, to heart and mind, 
 all zest had gone with wasted opportunities, and 
 that for all that money could furnish such a man 
 I had learned indifference. 
 
 "There had been a time when to ride in a 
 
THE CONFESSIONS OF A MILLIONAIRE. J J 
 
 carriage was esteemed a luxury, and when a 
 good dinner with a friend was just rare enough 
 to be remembered as a special event; but now, 
 my carriage being a matter of course, I took it 
 when the horse-cars would not answer my pur- 
 pose, and with as little thought of congratulat- 
 ing myself upon it as a luxury as I would have 
 given to my shoes ; and as to good dinners with 
 my friends, they had become duller than a bank 
 directors' meeting." 
 
 Here, as my uncle paused, I remarked that he 
 had at least acquired the power to advance others, 
 and perhaps gain happiness by conferring it. 
 
 " Yes," he replied, " to some extent; but the 
 trouble is that as a rule the habits of life acquired 
 in the long process of accumulating a fortune 
 unfit the possessor for philanthropic work. 
 
 "He has no enthusiasms, no such love for 
 any cause that to give to it would be a special 
 pleasure ; and so he gives, if at all, as a conces- 
 sion to public opinion — as a sort of penance for 
 being rich — and under a secret protest. In 
 such giving there is about as much happiness as 
 in being robbed on the highway. 
 
 " Or such a man gives lavishly for display, to 
 hear the music of his name upon the tongues 
 of men, and with about the same high grade 
 of happiness with which he pays his advertising 
 bills. 
 
 " Still, there is much that a rich man may do 
 
78 ADDRESSES. 
 
 with his money beyond the supply of his own 
 wants, of a character to react in happiness ; and 
 I believe that I should have sought this relief, 
 but for an accident, the great fire which you 
 doubtless remember, which suddenly reduced 
 me from wealth to the modest fortune I now 
 possess. 
 
 "I made no effort to recover my losses, but 
 withdrew from active business, content with 
 enough remaining to afford me reasonable com- 
 fort and freedom from care, and then devoted 
 myself to a new departure in the pursuit of hap- 
 piness ; and the fact that my life, emerging from 
 bondage at fifty, has reached a fuller, heartier 
 happiness at sixty than it ever knew in youth 
 or prime, may justify me in affecting to teach 
 you something of what I call my philosophy. 
 
 " Now you are starting out for the common 
 goal; and I charge you if you seek happiness, 
 and of a kind that never yet imperilled an im- 
 mortal soul, lay up* for yourself treasures in this 
 world, — but not of the kind that moth and rust 
 can corrupt or thieves steal. 
 
 " Pray not for the gift of Midas. Remember the 
 hungry fool reaching out for food and clutching 
 a golden mockery, the starving wretch fleeing 
 on golden footprints to the waters of Pactolus 
 to wash away the curse of his magic touch. 
 
 " He is pitifully poor, though he count millions, 
 who cannot buy for his heart the throb of human 
 
THE CONFESSIONS OF A MILLIONAIRE. 79 
 
 sympathy, or purchase for his age the solace of 
 respect. To the world he may seem to be the 
 favorite of fortune : but hear what old Izaak 
 Walton says: 
 
 " ' As God knows, the cares that are the keys that keep 
 those riches hang often so heavily at the rich man's 
 girdle that they dog him with weary days and restless 
 nights, even when others sleep quietly. 
 
 " ' We see but the outside of the rich man's happiness ; 
 few consider him to v be like the silkworm, that when she 
 seems to play, is at the very same time spinning her 
 own bowels and consuming herself.' 
 
 " Jonesby is called rich because he has three mil- 
 lions invested in railroads, but he has also invested 
 himself vn. railroads. 
 
 " He belongs to stockholders who are dividing 
 him up in dividends. 
 
 "Our friend Smithsby has a million or two 
 snugly secured, and devotes his penurious mind 
 to keeping down his expenses. Poor old soul ! He 
 is in love with his ungrateful gold, that will not 
 serve him, but works only for its own increase. 
 He is but the ill-fed watch-dog of his own treasury, 
 and he lives for a dog's reward. 
 
 " But to resume the strain of advice : I hope 
 that you will not be led by the course of others 
 to think too highly of money for its own sake, 
 or for the pleasures and benefits which it may 
 seem to confer. 
 
80 ADDRESSES. 
 
 "As society is constituted, every man is expected 
 to be self-supporting, and should seek to gain the 
 means of a comfortable life, — not necessarily the 
 means to live without labor, — for to most men 
 capable of what I call intelligent happiness, work 
 of some sort is desirable, — but to escape the 
 necessity of constant and distasteful drudgery. 
 
 " This is perhaps the first rational step towards 
 happiness, since of course to the average man of 
 our society the contentment of insensate poverty 
 or mere careless vagabondage is impossible ; but 
 the time and thought given to the accumulation 
 of a surplus are generally misspent. 
 
 " The man of moderate means and the philoso- 
 phy to find them sufficient for his reasonable 
 uses, is richer than a Vanderbilt with all his mil- 
 lions and his greed for more. 
 
 " Every person has a certain natural range of 
 wants. His appetite demands a certain kind and 
 quantity of food ; his mind requires to be nourished 
 according to its quality and training; his social 
 nature must have its congenial atmosphere, and 
 his impulses their opportunity for action ; and so 
 it seems to me that just as there is a proper house 
 for every man, according to his tastes, the size of 
 his family, and the number of his welcome guests, 
 so there is a fortune appropriate for every man ; 
 and by this I mean that fortune which he can use 
 with advantage to himself and those dependent 
 upon him in supplying their proper wants, in 
 
THE CONFESSIONS OF A MILLIONAIRE. 8 1 
 
 promoting rational pleasures, and in judicious 
 charities, — in a word, just so much as he can enjoy 
 in the use and not in the mere possession. 
 
 " All beyond this, that is gained at the expense 
 of time and energy, costs too much ; for a man's 
 time is all there is of him in this world, and he 
 can ill afford to spend himself for the mere 
 possession of anything he does not need. 
 
 " It is with money as with life : he alone holds 
 it worthily who can upon occasion regard it with 
 indifference. 
 
 " Of course mere riches may gain the possessor 
 the envy and homage of a certain class ; but the 
 rich man, unless he be a simple fellow rich by 
 accident, instead of deriving pleasure from this 
 source, is humiliated by the thought that the same 
 tribute would follow his money into the hands of 
 any fool. 
 
 " Why, sometimes, when I had the million of 
 which I told you, a young man would rise and 
 press me to take his seat in a car when a feeble 
 woman was standing before him. 
 
 " Can you imagine that I found anything but 
 pain and shame in such a deference as that? 
 
 " And often during that period I received in- 
 vitations from the fastidious De Browns or the 
 exclusive Smythes, telling me in conventional 
 phrase, leaving a little to be understood, that they 
 desired the presence of a millionaire in my per- 
 son at a dinner or musical reception ; and of course 
 
 6 
 
82 ADDRESSES. 
 
 I regarded the compliment as something less than 
 that they paid the hired musicians, since they 
 were bidden for their skill and accomplishments, 
 and I for nothing meritorious." ' 
 
 My uncle paused here, and thinking the occa- 
 sion opportune to turn him to a lighter strain, I 
 pushed the decanter toward him, and said : — 
 
 " I confess that you have about persuaded me 
 not to amass many millions more than I suppose 
 I need, and not to work immoderately in getting 
 the little fortune that shall fit me, as you put 
 it ; but what more shall I do — or not do — to be 
 happy? 
 
 " You say that in your unhappy days of wealth 
 you were offered the advantages of fashionable 
 society. Now suppose that this society, over- 
 looking my philosophical poverty, should open 
 its doors to me: shall I enter?" 
 
 " Ah ! " said my uncle, " I perceive that you 
 have heard enough of the evils of money-getting ; 
 but before we quit the subject, let us sum it up 
 after the fashion of old Time himself — don't you 
 remember the lines : — 
 
 " ' Quoth I, " Here 's Christmas come again, 
 
 And I no farthing richer ! " 
 Time answered, " Ah ! the old, old strain ! 
 
 I prithee pass the pitcher ; 
 Why measure all your good in gold ? 
 
 No rope of sand is weaker ; 
 *T is hard to get, — 't is hard to hold ; 
 
 Come, lad, fill up your beaker ! " '" 
 
THE CONFESSIONS OF A MILLIONAIRE. 83 
 
 And after suiting the action to the quoted 
 word, my uncle looked at me with a quizzical 
 smile, and said : — 
 
 " As to fashionable society — well, perhaps you 
 may as well try it, just for the experience. 
 
 " Most men like meat better after trying to eat 
 feathers. But just examine yourself first; or, if 
 you 're not good at diagnosis, get some old fellow 
 like me to do it for you, — and find out what 
 manner of man you are for such experiments ; and 
 if you find that your pulse is steady at something 
 under seventy ; that your vanity is broken to bit 
 and- rein; that your heart is domestic enough to 
 decline excursion tickets from strangers ; and, in 
 short, that you have common sense enough to 
 avoid making a fool of yourself under strong 
 temptations, then, I would say to you, go into 
 fashionable society. Society, in its broad sense, 
 is the common school of the race, fashionable 
 society the dancing-school. 
 
 " Perhaps you may as well learn to waltz, if 
 you are sure you can do so without forgetting 
 how to walk. 
 
 " In this school you will be taught that policy 
 is the best honesty ; but don't stake your whole 
 future on that proposition until you have tested 
 it ; and you will learn that fat brains and brutish 
 instincts are excusable defects in a man who has 
 distinguished himself by inheriting a fortune; 
 but don't act upon that doctrine in choosing 
 friends or models. 
 
84 ADDRESSES. 
 
 " And you may sometimes find a firefly passing 
 for a meteor, but don't conclude at once that 
 every glowworm is a star. 
 
 " You will perhaps see a man six feet long and 
 bearded, with his brilliant intellect focused upon 
 his scarf, his keen introspection arrested by his 
 under-clothing; or notice the antics of some vet- 
 eran beau, who, as Lord Chesterfield once said of 
 himself, has been dead for years, but does not 
 wish it to be known ; or you may observe how 
 cleverly one woman stabs a dozen with a new 
 dress ; or watch a cage of pretty parrots, and see 
 them flutter in consternation when some wilful 
 bird that will not learn the parrot phrases spreads 
 her impatient wings and sounds the note of the 
 free forest; but such observations will hardly 
 afford you more than amusement. 
 
 " Still, you will find people intent upon the same 
 purpose as yourself, — the attainment of happi- 
 ness, — and if you wear your eyes open, you may 
 profit by their errors. 
 
 " You will see especially the folly of pretense. 
 
 " Let me illustrate this by a woman's case, — 
 not that women are more dishonest than men, but 
 because the conditions of their life and social 
 status expose them to more insidious temptations, 
 and render more conspicuous the consequences of 
 this error. 
 
 " She craves admiration — in itself a legitimate 
 element of happiness. 
 
THE CONFESSIONS OF A MILLIONAIRE. 85 
 
 " She finds that homage is paid to beauty, and 
 so she attempts by fraud to simulate a beauty she 
 has not. She buys with false coin, and she can- 
 not wholly enjoy her purchase : she fears detec- 
 tion, and this fear stimulates her to an anxious 
 effort that precludes happiness." 
 
 Here I interrupted my uncle, — for I could not 
 tamely listen to such a criticism of the better sex, 
 — and said : — 
 
 " Do you really mean to say that in such things 
 women are dishonest, and by these trifling decep- 
 tions they work out their own unhappiness ? Is 
 not beauty admirable and the love of admiration 
 seemly in a woman ? " 
 
 " Ah ! " replied my uncle, "I see that your gal- 
 lantry is challenged, and you must champion your 
 fair divinities ; but you take me too seriously. 
 
 " I do not mean that the lady who gilds her 
 tresses of copper and passes them for gold com- 
 mits a crime, or that she will inevitably suffer the 
 pangs of remorse for such an act ; but I say the 
 motive is dishonest, and the end will be disap- 
 pointment. 
 
 " In the social market where she buys there is 
 no law against such things, and moreover she is 
 encouraged and assured by the frequency and 
 apparent success of similar enterprises on every 
 side. 
 
 " By some undiscussable law of her nature, such 
 a woman must be noticed by men, or she perishes ; 
 
86 ADDRESSES. 
 
 and if she be not wholly blind, she readily per- 
 ceives that the average man sees quicker with his 
 eye than with his mind, and is not fastidious in 
 the indulgence of his senses. 
 
 " He languidly admits the excellence of some 
 plain woman with working brain and sterling 
 character, but devotes himself to some girl with 
 shaded eyes and tinted cheeks. 
 
 " You may say that he invites the fraud, and 
 deserves to be deceived. True; if we assume 
 that he is deceived we shall waste no sympathy 
 on him. 
 
 "But the mischief is not to him — at least not 
 directly. The woman practises her art, not with 
 the almost laudable design to deceive men who 
 court deception, but for the purpose of attracting 
 admiration by false pretenses ; and almost before 
 she realizes her ephemeral success she feels some 
 pang that robs her of the coveted satisfaction. 
 She has given herself to a lie, and she must share 
 its fate. She has given it currency, and the world 
 honors it with a smile that implies no censure; 
 but she is not content, for she cannot be sure 
 that the smile is not a cheat too ; or perhaps she 
 is painfully shocked at some more glaring fraud 
 which under her very eyes has achieved a more 
 conspicuous success. 
 
 " But by all means, my boy, go into fashionable 
 society. 
 
 "Voltaire says that illusion is the first of all 
 
THE CONFESSIONS OF A MILLIONAIRE. 87 
 
 pleasures ; and here you may find the beginning 
 of happiness. 
 
 " However, you need not believe implicitly in all 
 appearances. 
 
 " For example, Mrs. Smithby, who brought from 
 the finishing school the paper pattern of an edu- 
 cation, and loves art well enough to enjoy a plate 
 of her favorite fruit in a chromo, meets Mrs. 
 Jonesby, who is really a model housekeeper, some- 
 what debilitated by the epidemic aestheticism in 
 her system. 
 
 "With a gentle sorrow just tinged by the bit- 
 terness of unforgiving censure, Mrs. Smithby 
 deplores the meretricious tendency of modern 
 art; while Mrs. Jonesby, who has lately knelt 
 at the feet of an apostle in hair and knee- 
 breeches, mourns over the fearful responsibility 
 of a trustee for beauty, and laments the degrada- 
 tion of a race that will not dress in symphonies. 
 
 " But, my boy, don't let such evidence of grief 
 sadden your young life. Time will assuage such 
 sorrows, and these fair sufferers will yet find 
 something to live for, — perhaps art, or church, 
 or children, but probably fashionable society. 
 
 " For such stricken ones, as for the soft-eyed 
 young widow who begins to take notice, you 
 may safely trust to a relenting fate, for I believe 
 that even Fate might be cajoled by one of these, 
 who sigh with such discretion and weep so 
 apropos." 
 
88 ADDRESSES. 
 
 "Really," exclaimed I, with some heat, "do 
 you mean to condemn these modish little fic- 
 tions? Is it not better for such people to talk 
 up than down? Would you have a lady for 
 honesty's sake parade her love of cabbages in 
 a society that is lily-mad ? " 
 
 "Well," said he, "I think that in the pur- 
 suit of happiness she will gain more by eating 
 cabbages with a relish than by taking lilies as a 
 prescription. 
 
 " But I repeat, probably society of this kind 
 won't hurt you, and may teach you lessons worth 
 learning. 
 
 "You are, I perceive, already conscious of 
 women in the world; and so, having nodded to 
 your destiny, you may as well offer your arm and 
 go the way of all men, even though it lead you 
 into "that carnival of women we call the circle 
 of fashion. 
 
 " What a masquerade it seems to an old man in 
 the gallery ! And yet I confess to you that when 
 I was a boy of your age and down among the 
 maskers I thought it all real life, and took the 
 fellow in armor for a knight, and the creature 
 with a wand for a true queen of fairies ; and you 
 may do the same, and perhaps be none the worse 
 for it, if you don't die young ; for you will find 
 food for thought, and may be wise enough to stop 
 sometimes to think. 
 
 " But if you are led to wonder whether devo- 
 
THE CONFESSIONS OF A MILLIONAIRE. 89 
 
 tion to such a life brings true happiness, mark its 
 devotees. 
 
 " Take, for instance, a young girl, the unfortu- 
 nate child of some worldly, ambitious woman, who 
 has reached the position of a leader in society. 
 
 "The daughter, of course, is destined to the 
 same life, and must come to it prepared. Follow 
 her through the course of artificial training begun 
 in the nursery and continued in the fashionable 
 boarding-school. 
 
 " Observe how carefully the natural impulses of 
 youth are warped into the cool artfulness of the 
 tutored miss; how readily the development of 
 her understanding is postponed to the training 
 of her voice and step ; how wickedly the culture 
 of her heart is sacrificed to the acquisition of 
 stated accomplishments and selected affectations, 
 until, out of the grand possibilities of girlhood, 
 she comes to society distorted and made over, 
 robbed of the strength and sweetness that God 
 gave her for her woman's portion, and equipped 
 instead with the ready artifice, the social maxims, 
 the ravenous vanity, and mercenary purpose of 
 the fashionable debutante. 
 
 " If we trace her further, we shall see how faith- 
 fully she worships at the shrine of fashion, and 
 how blindly she follows the decrees of that wanton 
 goddess in dress, habits, sentiment, and even re- 
 ligion; for that is often scarce deeper than her 
 complexion, and may be shaded as easily to suit 
 the mode. 
 
90 ADDRESSES. 
 
 " Her beauty, grace, accomplishments, and po- 
 sition, — these are her capital for speculation, and 
 she places it in the social mart with all the 
 shrewdness of a practical financier; and after a 
 few seasons of physical, mental, and spiritual dis- 
 sipation, she bestows on some deluded man the 
 empty chrysalis of her affections which they 
 agree to call a heart, and gives herself to slow 
 starvation over the garnished mess of pottage for 
 which she has bartered her birthright of true 
 womanhood. 
 
 " And, my boy, she will smile like a seraph to 
 the end ; but don't imagine that the smile beto- 
 kens happiness. It is said that in Sardinia grows 
 a poisonous plant which, if eaten by man, con- 
 vulses the features into a horrible expression of 
 mirth, and the tortured victim slowly dies with 
 the sardonic smile upon his face. And so, I 
 fancy, we sometimes read in the set smile of fash- 
 ion the story of a poisoned and wasting life. 
 
 " But, you will say, there must be some scope 
 for happiness in such a life, or men and women 
 would not continue in it. That does not follow. 
 There are errors as old as mankind and apparent 
 as the sun, which will always continue to ensnare 
 the majority. 
 
 " Anger, hatred, and malice are patent ways to 
 vain regret, and yet the multitude will not forsake 
 them. 
 
 " Of course, I am not condemning the social life 
 
THE CONFESSIONS OF A MILLIONAIRE. 91 
 
 of our people, so far as it fosters a natural sympa- 
 thy and teaches the amenities of life, for to that 
 extent it is beneficent; but I am warning you 
 against any serious devotion to that phase of so- 
 ciety which is due to idleness, vanity, and surplus 
 wealth, and in which too often a clever affectation 
 passes for culture. 
 
 " It is a game of counterfeits, and the winnings 
 are mainly spurious. In business life a man who 
 gains credit by false representations is punished 
 as a swindler. In society a man who gets posi- 
 tion by false pretenses is often justified by suc- 
 cess ; but then, if society were conducted upon 
 business principles, it would become a court of 
 bankruptcy." 
 
 Here I again interrupted my uncle, and in- 
 quired, with some asperity, perhaps, why he had 
 chosen so often to illustrate the foibles of society 
 by feminine examples. 
 
 " Because," said he, " in that direction the evil 
 is the more apparent and mischievous. Did any 
 man ever frame his picture of earthly happiness 
 without a woman's face in it? Is there anything 
 in life so dear to man as the undented purity of 
 woman, or so lovely as her natural grace and 
 beauty? 
 
 "The things that degrade a man's ideals im- 
 poverish the man, and hence I say that these 
 social errors are the concern of man, and fair 
 targets for his satire. 
 
92 ADDRESSES. 
 
 " The sins of men are of the grosser sort, and 
 palpable enough for the grasp of law; but those 
 of women come in such questionable shapes that 
 we hesitate to give them name and character. 
 
 "Suppose it were possible that a fashionable 
 lady, though somewhat dim in her theology, 
 should have a clear conception of a stylish re- 
 ligion. She would be concerned not so much 
 about what she worshipped as what she wor- 
 shipped in, and would probably limit her creed 
 to the belief in a personal clergyman. 
 
 " Of course in view of your threatening de- 
 meanor I don't suggest that there is really such 
 a case to be found; but if there were, society 
 would doubtless let it pass for piety, and hardly 
 hint at profanation. 
 
 " Therefore because of the tendencies which ap- 
 pear in fashionable society — the society that 
 asserts itself and affects to set up standards other 
 than worth and true culture — I say to you, en- 
 joy it as you would a play. Go where you 
 please for study or recreation, but don't get 
 stage-struck. Take the stimulant if you need, 
 but beware of the chronic thirst, or you are 
 lost." 
 
 Then I reminded my uncle that he had only 
 told of the things which in his life of wealth he 
 had found unproductive of happiness ; and that I 
 should be glad to know by what steps he had 
 escaped from the error of his ways and reached 
 
THE CONFESSIONS OF A MILLIONAIRE. 93 
 
 the position of a consciously happy man ; and he 
 replied : — 
 
 " In the first place, let me disclaim perfect 
 felicity: no sane or sober man possesses it. I 
 am simply contented, and I actively enjoy life ; 
 and as to the process — why, you have much of 
 it already by inference, and the rest I can give 
 you in few words. 
 
 " At fifty I realized that I had sadly neglected 
 my power of rational enjoyment, and, upon the 
 theory that one is never too old to learn, I began 
 to educate myself for what you may perhaps call 
 a selfish life. True, it is selfish ; but so are many 
 of our best deeds. Indeed, I have sometimes 
 thought there is much truth in La Rochefoucauld's 
 maxim that ' Our virtues are frequently but 
 vices ; ' and perhaps the converse is sometimes 
 true. At all events, we may admit that for men 
 who lack the learning and genius to confer 
 direct benefits upon mankind, the highest form of 
 selfishness, which consists in the development of 
 the best self, is a beneficent virtue. 
 
 " My method was simple and direct. For ex- 
 ample, a comet appeared in the heavens, and I 
 conceived the idea that a man of general intel- 
 ligence and leisure for study might as well know 
 something about comets. So I bought an as- 
 tronomy and renewed my youthful studies, and, 
 I am proud to say, became interested, and learned 
 to find new pleasures in the stars that I had 
 
94 ADDRESSES. 
 
 gazed upon for half a century. I invited artists 
 to my house and got them to talk to me of art 
 and teach me something of their methods, not 
 that I might make pretense of art-culture, but 
 simply to enhance to me the value of my crude 
 love for form and color ; and I learned to enjoy 
 the pictures on my walls and in the galleries not 
 merely by vague impression, but, measurably, 
 for their merits and their evidence of artistic skill. 
 " I was unwilling that the stream of literature 
 should flow through all the world and not con- 
 tribute to my cup of life, and so I have learned 
 to find pleasure in thoughts which I had long put 
 aside as unworthy of a mind dedicated to com- 
 merce ; and I have found friends in men whom 
 formerly I had regarded as useless members of 
 society, — some of them queer fellows, you would 
 say, but each with a fund of knowledge, a vein of 
 delicious humor, or a store of rare conceits, that 
 amply repays me for the trouble of discovery. I 
 have even reached that high degree of philosophy 
 which enabled me to go a-fishing without feel- 
 ing that I thereby lost time or dignity. And 
 then to such griefs as came to me, I gave no wel- 
 come, but sought to be rid of them as quickly as 
 possible, attacking them with all fair weapons, 
 just as I would fight a headache with fresh air or a 
 dose of medicine. Except the fear of death there 
 is nothing in life so unphilosophical as mourn- 
 ing forced by a sense of duty or prolonged by a 
 
THE CONFESSIONS OF A MILLIONAIRE. 95 
 
 social custom. In a word, after a life devoted to 
 the accumulation of a fortune and to the con- 
 ventional forms of recreation, I found that the 
 best pleasures and the worthiest satisfaction pos- 
 sible to my nature were of a kind that money- 
 could not buy, or even promote, except so far 
 as it furnished relief from drudgery and sordid 
 cares ; and my chief regret as I draw near the 
 end of life is, that I have spent its best years in 
 the worship of false gods. 
 
 " But I have wearied you with my rambling 
 monologue. Let me epitomize part of our table 
 talk to-night in a little fable. 
 
 " A man lived in a beautiful garden, but he 
 knew not of the fruit and flowers, for all the day 
 long he digged in the earth for gold, and the 
 bee and the bird and the passer-by gathered the 
 riches of the garden ; and when his day was done 
 he had digged a pit deep enough for a grave and 
 the gold he had found was enough to bury him." 
 
 Here my Aunt Jane entered the room to see if 
 my uncle was smoking more than one cigar after 
 his dinner, and during the explanation which en- 
 sued I withdrew, musing over my uncle's queer 
 fancies and repeating to myself the old familiar 
 lines, — 
 
 " O happiness, how far we flee 
 Thine own sweet paths in search of thee ! " 
 
THE RISE AND FALL OF THE DEVIL. 
 
 Read before the Chicago Literary Club on 
 January 31, 1887. 
 
 NO character in history or fiction has been so 
 universally execrated as the devil. He is 
 nearly as old as man, and throughout his long 
 career he has been regarded by most of our race 
 as vastly their inferior in point of morality. Only 
 the most humbly pious of men — those who have 
 found ecstasy in magnifying their worm-hood and 
 sought perfection by exaggerating their deformi- 
 ties — have admitted his superiority ; and even 
 these have assumed that in this very self-abase- 
 ment was a virtue which must ultimately put him 
 beneath their feet. Wherever man has dwelt, the 
 devil has been known and feared. We believe 
 there is no race of people known to history which 
 has not acknowledged him in some shape or guise, 
 either as a single spirit or a band of spirits, an 
 emanation from air or earth or water, a wind, a 
 river, an animal, a bird, a man-like personality or 
 an indescribable monster, but always as a super- 
 natural being or power intent upon evil, and the 
 inveterate foe of man. How long, or in what 
 various forms, he was known during that prehis- 
 
THE RISE AND FALL OF THE DEVIL. 97 
 
 toric period whose countless ages we scarcely 
 estimate, is of course conjectural ; but doubtless at 
 whatever time after creation, or at whatever stage 
 of evolution, man first learned to distinguish good 
 and evil and to speculate upon the sources of things 
 deemed good or evil, some malevolent being was 
 imagined as the instigator of sin and the author 
 of all calamities, and by some name unknown to 
 us became the devil of that age and people. 
 
 It is not, however, the purpose of this paper to 
 trace the devil-idea through its earliest history; 
 and so with this brief allusion to its antiquity we 
 pass at once to the consideration of its latest per- 
 sonification in our devil, — the personal, scrip- 
 tural devil of Christendom, — and propose to 
 sketch his rise and fall. 
 
 If in doing so we shall seem to lack that spirit 
 of reverential awe with which the mention of his 
 name appears to inspire some persons, and shall 
 thereby bring a shiver of apprehension to any of 
 our hearers, it may reassure them to remember 
 that to him the abuse of mortals is the sweetest 
 flattery. If therefore we should bring against 
 him the most serious charges of immorality and 
 openly impugn his motives, we should only grat- 
 ify his vitiated pride without increasing his hostil- 
 ity ; but lest we seem thereby to be doing him a 
 willing kindness, it may be well to exorcise him 
 at once and put him out of hearing, — which is 
 easily done. 
 
 7 
 
98 ADDRESSES. 
 
 Luther, who was far too intimate with him, — a 
 great deal more so than any modern reformer 
 professes to be, — discovered that he could not 
 withstand humor. 
 
 Whenever in his controversies with the devil 
 he found argument and Scripture unavailing, he 
 would say : " Devil, if, as you say, Christ's blood, 
 which was shed for my sins, be not sufficient to 
 insure my salvation, can't you pray for me your- 
 self, Devil?" and this suggestion never failed to 
 terminate the interview. 
 
 We do not pretend to the sparkling humor of 
 Luther ; but we feel assured that the little pleas- 
 antries which may escape us will be equally effica- 
 cious to disgust the devil and drive him hence. 
 
 Leaving out of consideration all other devils 
 who play their parts in the many strange re- 
 ligions of the world, and confining ourselves for 
 the present to that one who is supposed to devote 
 himself especially to the torture of Christians, let 
 us inquire, with all the air of making a new 
 acquaintance, who is he? One will answer, he is 
 Satan, the rebellious and fallen angel, the foe of 
 God and man, who has been since the world 
 began. Another will say, he is the last edition of 
 a myth which in their ancient history the Jews 
 called Satan ; and still another, he is Ahriman of 
 the old Persians, re-christened by the Jews and 
 re-habited by the Christian fathers. Let it suf- 
 fice our purpose, however, that he is a being, 
 
THE RISE AND FALL OF THE DEVIL. 99 
 
 real or mythical, with a history, an influence, and 
 a destiny which challenge our interest. 
 
 If we attempt to depict him by reference to 
 human testimony, we shall present but a vague 
 and confused image. He has been credited with 
 the power of a god and the pettiness of a babe, 
 the wisdom of a sage and the folly of a fool, the 
 cruelty of a pestilence and the malice of a slan- 
 derer. In person he has been represented as an 
 Apollo and as a monster. He has been assigned 
 the horns and hoofs of a goat, the tail of an ape, 
 the tongue of a serpent, the wings of a bat, and 
 every complexion possible to flesh or ghost. By 
 comparison the sea-serpent is a type of constancy 
 in form, the chameleon a standard of color, and the 
 moods of a woman are unvarying as the seasons. 
 But on one point all writers agree. He is old, 
 crafty, and energetic "to a fault," in extending 
 his acquaintance. 
 
 His early history is involved in obscurity. The 
 garden of Eden, the grave of Adam, the landing- 
 place of the ark, — each of these spots has been 
 located with amazing accuracy in a dozen places, 
 but the birthplace of the devil is still unknown ; 
 nor is the date of his birth clearly proven. 
 
 The common belief, which regards him as 
 identical with the Satan of the Old Testament, is 
 content to find him ready-made in the beginning 
 — the very beginning, before the heavens and 
 the earth — and connects him with the human 
 
IOO ADDRESSES. 
 
 race in its infancy by supposing that in the 
 form of a serpent he introduced sin into Eden ; 
 but as to where he acquired sin — whether he in- 
 vented it or it produced him — there is scarcely a 
 theory held with confidence. Such questions are 
 by common consent relegated to the domain of 
 the too abstruse. 
 
 If, however, we turn to the Old Testament we 
 shall find little to justify this belief. The name 
 " Satan " signified in the Hebrew an " adversary " 
 or an " accuser ; " and this is the sense in which 
 we find it used in the old Scriptures. 
 
 The first mention of Satan occurs in the First 
 Book of Chronicles, where it is written that " Satan 
 stood up against Israel and provoked David to 
 number Israel." Read this, however, in connec- 
 tion with the first verse of the 24th chapter of 
 Second Samuel, — " And again the anger of the 
 Lord was kindled against Israel, and he moved 
 David against them to say, Go, number Israel and 
 Judah," — and it will appear that if it was Satan 
 who provoked the act it was in furtherance of the 
 Lord's purpose. 
 
 In the first chapter of Job we read : — 
 
 "6. Now there was a day when the sons of God 
 came to present themselves before the Lord, and Satan 
 came also among them. 
 
 " 7. And the Lord said unto Satan, Whence comest 
 thou ? Then Satan answered the Lord, and said, From 
 
THE RISE AND FALL OF THE DEVIL. 10 1 
 
 going to and fro in the earth, and from walking up and 
 down in it. 
 
 " 8. And the Lord said unto Satan, Hast thou con- 
 sidered my servant Job, that there is none like him in 
 the earth, a perfect and an upright man, one that fear- 
 eth God, and escheweth evil? 
 
 " 9. Then Satan answered the Lord, and said, Doth 
 Job fear God for nought? 
 
 " 10. Hast not thou made an hedge about him, and 
 about his house, and about all that he hath on every 
 side? thou hast blessed the work of his hands, and 
 his substance is increased in the land. 
 
 "11. But put forth thy hand now, and touch all that 
 he hath, and he will curse thee to thy face. 
 
 " 12. And the Lord said unto Satan, Behold, all that 
 he hath is in thy power; only upon himself put not 
 forth thine hand. So Satan went forth from the presence 
 of the Lord." 
 
 Here we have Satan introduced as one of — or 
 among — the sons of God. He comes from going 
 to and fro in the earth, not apparently on any- 
 evil mission, but as a member of the spirit band 
 sent forth to patrol the earth. 
 
 This idea is not altogether fanciful. It is sup- 
 ported by a vision, as well authenticated as the 
 words we have quoted, of which we may read in 
 the first chapter of Zechariah : — 
 
 " 8. I saw by night, and behold a man riding upon a 
 red horse, and he stood among the myrtle trees that 
 were in the bottom ; and behind him were there red 
 horses, speckled, and white. 
 
102 ADDRESSES. 
 
 " 9. Then said I, my lord, what are these ? And 
 the angel that talked with me said unto me, I will shew 
 thee what these be. 
 
 " 10. And the man that stood among the myrtle trees 
 answered and said, These are they whom the Lord hath 
 sent to walk to and fro through the earth. 
 
 "n. And they answered the angel of the Lord that 
 stood among the myrtle trees, and said, We have walked 
 to and fro through the earth, and, behold, all the earth 
 sitteth still, and is at rest." 
 
 In the one hundred and ninth Psalm we find 
 the passage : — 
 
 "Set thou a wicked man over him; and let Satan 
 stand at his right hand." 
 
 And in the third chapter of Zechariah we read : 
 
 " 1. And he shewed me Joshua the high priest stand- 
 ing before the angel of the Lord, and Satan standing at 
 his right hand to resist him. 
 
 " 2. And the Lord said unto Satan, The Lord rebuke 
 thee, O Satan ; even the Lord that hath chosen Jerusa- 
 lem rebuke thee : is not this a brand plucked out of 
 the fire?" 
 
 These, we believe, are the only passages in 
 which "Satan" is used as a proper name in the 
 Old Testament; and we have quoted them at 
 length, as they furnish the only scriptural basis 
 for the belief in Satan as a personal being prior 
 to the Christian era, or for the later belief that he 
 was identical with the devil of our theology. 
 
THE RISE AND FALL OF THE DEVIL. 103 
 
 It is apparent, however, that the characteristics 
 here given to Satan, and his relation to the divine 
 government, as a sort of prosecuting attorney in 
 the Court of Heaven, are widely different from 
 those of his successor. It is probable, however, 
 that we have in this Satan the first conception of 
 that personified evil principle which under vari- 
 ous modifications has survived to the present day 
 in the devil-myth of our theology ; and upon this 
 supposition we examine the record further to as- 
 certain, if possible, whether the existence and 
 office of Satan may reasonably be predicated upon 
 the authority of divine revelation, — such author- 
 ity as the Church assumes for the Mosaic account 
 of the creation. 
 
 In the first place, we observe that none of the 
 passages quoted are found in the Pentateuch, — 
 the so-called Books of Moses, which are now 
 commonly believed by critics to have been com- 
 posed from four to eight hundred years after the 
 time of Moses, and reduced to their present form 
 in the reign of Josiah, or about six centuries 
 before Christ. This omission of Satan in the 
 books of the law and the story of creation is 
 presumptive evidence of the fact that he was not 
 known to Moses either by divine revelation or by 
 human tradition; whether we assume that the 
 books attributed to him were written by him or 
 constructed substantially out of material fur- 
 nished by him ; and a little study of the chro- 
 
104 ADDRESSES. 
 
 nology of the books in which Satan is mentioned 
 will serve to strengthen this conclusion, and fix, 
 approximately, the date of his appearance in the 
 Jewish history. 
 
 Thus we shall find that Zechariah was not 
 written until the time of the Captivity, or later; 
 that the First Book of Chronicles was written, very 
 probably, though not certainly, about the same 
 date ; and that the one hundred and ninth Psalm 
 belongs to a still later period, after the return 
 from the Captivity ; while the Book of Job, con- 
 cerning the authorship and date of which com- 
 paratively little is known, is assigned by modern 
 critics to a later period than the Pentateuch. 
 
 We find, therefore, that all of these books, with 
 the possible exception of Job, were written after 
 the beginning of the Captivity, — by which we 
 mean, of course, the long, or seventy years', cap- 
 tivity in Babylon ; and that Job, if older, may 
 have been written after the earlier and minor 
 captivities of the Jews, and, like the others, with a 
 knowledge of the Persian traditions. Indeed, it 
 is said to have been the universal belief of the 
 Jewish and Christian Church till the fourth cen- 
 tury that the Old Testament was a compilation 
 made and published by the prophet Ezra, or 
 Esdras, some time after the return of the Israel- 
 ites from the Babylonish Captivity. And so we 
 are led to the conclusion that the Satan-myth, 
 like certain fables in Genesis, was derived through 
 
THE RISE AND FALL OF THE DEVIL. I OS 
 
 the Persians, nearly a thousand years after the 
 time of Moses, from sources not related to the 
 God of Christian theology. 
 
 Thus we find in Rawlinson's "Ancient Mon- 
 archies " a tradition of the manner and order of 
 creation, very similar to the account in Genesis, 
 which was held by the early Chaldeans probably 
 more than twenty-three centuries before Christ, 
 and nearly two thousand years before the earli- 
 est date now given by critics for the writing of 
 Genesis, and from which Niebuhr says the 
 Mosaic account was clearly drawn. So we find 
 current at the same time the story of the flood 
 and the ark, the building of the tower, and the 
 confusion of tongues. 
 
 In Media, as shown by the earlier portions of 
 the Zendavesta, the doctrine of evil spirits, or 
 " devas," was held long before the time of Moses. 
 These " devas " were represented as " numerous, 
 artful, malicious, inventors of spells, and deceivers 
 and injurers of mankind ; " though as yet no ac- 
 count was given of their creation of of the origin 
 of their wickedness-, nor was any single superior 
 intelligence or spirit of evil placed at their head. 
 Later, however, in the dualism of the Zoroastrian 
 system, we find Ahura-mazda, Ormuzd, or Ormazd, 
 the Prince of Light, and Angro-mainyus, or 
 Ahriman, the Prince of Darkness, — leaders of 
 the opposing forces of good and evil. Ahriman 
 created a band of evil spirits called devs, the 
 
106 ADDRESSES. 
 
 most powerful of which was an immense two-footed 
 serpent. After the creation of man, Ahriman, as 
 a serpent, tempted him to eat forbidden fruit, 
 and sin thereby entered the world. A redeemer 
 was to be born, of a virgin, who would subdue 
 the devs, raise the dead, and hold a final judg- 
 ment. Ahriman and his devs would be plunged 
 into a lake of fire for purification, and ultimately 
 pardoned. Here we have the story of the temp- 
 tation in Eden current among the Medes at a 
 date which critics place from eight to twelve centu- 
 ries before Christ and long before the Babylonish 
 Captivity or the writing of Genesis ; and here too 
 we find at least a plausible explanation of the 
 statement in Genesis that the tempter was a 
 serpent — no mention being made of Satan — 
 and of the puzzling curse which was put upon 
 him. The serpent was cursed above all cattle 
 and above every beast of the field, and doomed to 
 crawl thereafter, as if he had theretofore known 
 another manner of locomotion; which may be 
 explained by the Median tradition that the 
 tempter appeared as a serpent having feet. 
 
 In like manner we find in one of the passion- 
 plays of India, as described by Conway in his 
 " Demonology," Harischandra, the good and just 
 man, sorely tried and tempted by Viswamitra, 
 the powerful and crafty one, who acted under 
 authority of Indra ; or the drama of Job, con- 
 structed from legends of great antiquity, which, 
 
THE RISE AND FALL OF THE DEVIL. \0"J 
 
 if not older than the Book of Job, may at least be 
 assumed to have a different origin. 
 
 By this reference to the traditions of other 
 peoples outside of the Jewish history, by com- 
 parison of the dates assigned, and equally by 
 consideration of the internal evidence of the 
 Scriptures, it seems that we may safely conclude 
 that the Satan-idea was borrowed by the Old 
 Testament writers from foreign traditions; and 
 conceding this as the origin of the Christian 
 belief in the Prince of Darkness, we may confi- 
 dently say with Conway that "the devil was 
 theologically born in Persia about the year 900 
 B. c," although we should incline to fix the date 
 one or two centuries later. 
 
 But whatever doubt may exist concerning the 
 appearance of Satan in the Old Testament, it is 
 certain that in the beginning of the Christian era 
 his reputation had somewhat changed, and he 
 came to be regarded by the Jews as a being 
 possessed of the special powers and propensities 
 thereafter assigned to the devil. He is variously 
 mentioned in the New Testament as " Satan," as 
 an " old serpent," " the Prince of this World," 
 "Beelzebub," "the Prince of Darkness," "the 
 wicked one," and by many other titles. He 
 was recognized as the powerful, wily, and mali- 
 cious enemy of God and man. He no longer 
 figured as the prosecutor in the heavenly court, 
 an agency in the divine plan of government, but 
 
108 ADDRESSES. 
 
 had become the irreclaimable rebel, bent on 
 anarchy ; and if the narratives of the New Testa- 
 ment are to be literally, or even substantially, 
 credited, the devil of that time was a real person, 
 or at least had the power of assuming the form 
 and speech of man, and had the singular habit of 
 entering into and taking possession of man and 
 beast, which he accomplished not in his own 
 person, but by means of imps, demons, or deputy- 
 devils of diminutive size. 
 
 It is written that he tempted Jesus with words 
 and sophistries ; that he took him to a mountain- 
 top and to a pinnacle of the Temple; and that 
 he was addressed by Jesus, — the whole narrative 
 giving to each the same distinct personality. 
 And even the imps or sub-devils were appar- 
 ently personal beings, as may be concluded 
 from various narratives concerning them. 
 
 That Jesus himself believed in the personal 
 existence of a devil, or devils, is not clear. The 
 record of his words and works was not written 
 by him, nor (with the possible exception of the 
 Fourth Gospel) by one who heard or saw him. 
 
 Greg, in his " Creed of Christendom," after a 
 careful review of the evidence and the arguments 
 of modern critics, reaches the conclusion that the 
 first three Gospels " are compilations from a vari- 
 ety of fragmentary narratives and reports of dis- 
 courses and conversations, oral or written, which 
 were current in Palestine from thirty to forty 
 years after the death of Jesus." 
 
THE RISE AND FALL OF THE DEVIL. 1 09 
 
 Matthew Arnold concludes that " the record 
 when we first get it had passed through at least 
 half a century or more of oral tradition, and 
 through more than one written account ; " while 
 many critics date it from the latter part of the 
 second century, or later. Under these circum- 
 stances we can appreciate the difficulty which 
 Arnold experiences in criticising the Evangelists, 
 of determining " what in their report of Jesus is 
 Jesus, and what the reporters." 
 
 We know, however, that the people to whom 
 Jesus spoke were firm believers in the personality 
 of the devil; and it is probable that he spoke 
 according to their belief, not purporting out of 
 divine knowledge either to confirm or refute it, 
 for we find him referring to Mammon, recogniz- 
 ing the power of their prophets to work miracles, 
 and adopting the prevalent belief in the approach- 
 ing end of the world. 
 
 That the general teaching of the Jews on the 
 subject of evil possession was similar to that of 
 our forefathers of two centuries ago may be shown 
 by reference to the miracles wrought upon de- 
 moniacs. Thus, according to Matthew, Jesus met 
 two men possessed with devils, and was about to 
 relieve them, when the devils besought him that 
 if they were to be cast out of the men, they 
 might be suffered to enter into a herd of swine 
 near by, which was permitted them ; and straight- 
 way the swine ran into the sea and were drowned. 
 
110 ADDRESSES. 
 
 In the story according to Mark, there is but 
 one demoniac, but the devils in possession are a 
 legion, and the swine about two thousand in num- 
 ber ; while in Luke the swine are said to be many, 
 but not numbered. By these several narratives, 
 notwithstanding their trifling discrepancies, we 
 are led to important conclusions touching the 
 devils of that day. They were small ; for other- 
 wise, whether in fact a legion (about six thousand), 
 or only sufficient in number to supply the herd of 
 two thousand swine, they could hardly have dwelt 
 in the spare room of a single man. They were 
 gregarious, since they lived in such communi- 
 ties. They spoke the language of the country, 
 inasmuch as they conversed with men ; and they 
 had decided preferences as to their environment, 
 though as to their taste in selecting swine for a 
 habitation, after trying man, there may be some 
 question. 
 
 Now in all these respects — in respect of their 
 size, social instincts, lungs, vocal organs, and 
 brains — these devils are like those of more 
 modern date. Thus, a thousand years later, Saint 
 Dominic punished a heretic by causing him to 
 be invaded by a troop of fifteen thousand devils ; 
 Zwinglius insisted that Luther was " tenanted by 
 a whole troop of them ; " and we have read of a 
 later instance in which a poor woman was pos- 
 sessed of seventy-five thousand of these creatures, 
 who by their united efforts so affected her daily 
 
THE RISE AND FALL OF THE DEVIL. Ill 
 
 walk and conversation, that she was commonly said, 
 with apparent reason, to be " full of the devil." 
 
 In like manner it would be easy to prove that 
 these devils have in all ages been excellent lin- 
 guists. Cotton Mather, in his interesting ex- 
 periments with the devils which possessed the 
 Goodwin children, found that they understood 
 English, Latin, Greek, and Hebrew; and al- 
 though he noticed that one inferior language, 
 probably some Indian dialect, seemed to confuse 
 them, this was probably due to his bad accent. 
 
 It is contended by critics that the word which 
 is translated " devil " in the New Testament 
 means " demon," and that the notion of evil 
 possession had its origin in the demonology of 
 that period and not in the Satan-myth of the 
 early Scriptures. This is very probable ; but it 
 is evident that upon the decadence of the demons 
 their imps, or sub-demons, were adopted by their 
 successor, the devil, and that he has been, through 
 succeeding ages, accredited as their master and 
 the responsible author of witchcraft. A witch 
 who could not boast a solemn compact with him 
 and show his private mark might succeed well 
 enough to be burned, out of extra caution, but 
 could hardly escape the suspicion of fraud. 
 
 Having now considered the devil in his infancy, 
 let us advance to the period of his prime ; and 
 this brings us, with only a stop or two by the 
 way, to the seventeenth century. 
 
112 ADDRESSES. 
 
 During those dark and middle ages when igno- 
 rance and superstition hung over the world like 
 clouds that obscure the day, when a crafty priest- 
 hood hoarded the meagre learning of the times, 
 the devil was growing apace, but he was yet 
 immature. He was as active, restless, and mis- 
 chievous as a growing youth of his propensities 
 could be, and from time to time he drew to him- 
 self the serious attention of the world ; but he 
 was not yet fully understood in his personal 
 character or his relations to the divine govern- 
 ment. Thus, on one occasion in the eleventh 
 century, according to Matthew of Westminster, 
 the devil having been outwitted by a certain 
 priest, Palumbus, stretched his hand forth toward 
 heaven and said, " O Almighty God, how long 
 will you endure the wickedness of the priest 
 Palumbus ? " And " the priest, Palumbus, when 
 he heard the complaint which the devil addressed 
 to the Lord respecting him, knew that the end of 
 his days was at hand. On which account he am- 
 putated all his limbs with a knife and so died in 
 wonderful penitence, having confessed unheard of 
 crimes to the Pope, in the presence of all the 
 people." 
 
 But about this time the devil began to assume 
 that definite position in theology which he after- 
 wards held. Draper says that Christianity in its 
 earlier days knew little of the doctrine of the 
 atonement ; that it was not admitted by the Alex- 
 
THE RISE AND FALL OF THE DEVIL. 1 13 
 
 andrian theological school; that Tertullian did 
 not mention it in his Apology ; that it was never 
 prominently advanced by the fathers, and was 
 not brought to its present importance until the 
 time of Anselm ; that Philo Judaeus treated the 
 story of the fall as symbolical, and Origen re- 
 garded it as an allegory. If this is true, it was 
 not until the eleventh century that the serpent 
 in Paradise became an essential factor in the great 
 problem of original sin and possible redemption. 
 And not until a century or two later did the 
 superstition with which the human mind was satu- 
 rated manifest itself especially by the delusion 
 known as witchcraft. From that time, the terror- 
 ism exercised by the devil over the Christian 
 world grew steadily more despotic. The common 
 people in their daily life saw him in each un- 
 toward happening, in sickness, accident, storm, 
 famine, and each of the innumerable mishaps of 
 their miserable lives. They knew themselves to 
 be his predestined prey, and suspected each other 
 of treacherous compact and diabolical service. 
 If they sought refuge from their fears in the 
 house of God, it was often but to experience still 
 worse alarms ; for there the implacable fiend who 
 pursued them through life was set before their 
 excited imaginations as their merciless torturer 
 through all eternity. 
 
 This is perhaps the period to which Mr. Lowell 
 refers in his late poem : — 
 
 8 
 
114 ADDRESSES. 
 
 " Oh, happy days, when men received 
 From sire to son what all believed, 
 And left the other world in bliss 
 Contented with bedevilling this." 
 
 In 1484 an edict was issued by Pope Innocent 
 VIII., saying : — 
 
 " It is come to our ears that numbers of both 
 sexes do not avoid to have intercourse with the 
 infernal fiends, and that by their services they 
 affect both man and beast, . . . that they blast the 
 corn on the ground, the grapes of the vineyard, 
 the fruits of the trees, the grass and herbs of the 
 field." For these reasons the inquisitors were 
 armed with the apostolic power and called upon 
 to "convict, imprison, and punish," which they 
 proceeded to do with great zeal- and success. 
 
 In England witchcraft was made the subject of 
 express statute in 1541 and 1562; and in 1604, 
 early in the reign of James I., it was made a cap- 
 ital crime. In the sixteenth and seventeenth cen- 
 turies the belief in witchcraft was almost universal. 
 The Church of Rome continued to teach the 
 reality of the crime ; and in England, Scotland, 
 and America, Puritanism carried forward the de- 
 lusion almost to the pitch of frenzy. Not only 
 did the devil by his imps possess and torment 
 individuals and communities, but he personally 
 appeared to many ; while to all, substantially, he 
 was as real a person as any robber or murderer 
 convicted of crime. Luther saw him repeatedly. 
 
THE RISE AND FALL OF THE DEVIL. 115 
 
 He became so accustomed to his diabolical vis- 
 itor that, when he was awakened by some dis- 
 turbance and found it was only the devil, he felt 
 relieved, and went to sleep again at once. He 
 engaged in long arguments with him, and, if the 
 black spot on the wall in the Castle of Wartburg 
 is to be believed, wasted much ink on him. He 
 was therefore, of course, a firm believer in the 
 devil and all his works, especially witchcraft, 
 concerning which he says : " I would have no 
 compassion on these witches. I would burn 
 them all." 
 
 Erasmus, and probably Calvin also, held the 
 same belief; and in the next century we find its 
 adherents among the greatest men of England. 
 Sir Thomas Browne, who, curiously enough, had 
 written an able work in exposition of popular 
 fallacies, declared that all who doubted witch- 
 craft were infidels and atheists. Coke was Attor- 
 ney-General when the statute of James I. was 
 enacted ; and Bacon seems to have at least coun- 
 tenanced the views of the king on the subject. 
 Sir Matthew Hale presided at the trials of thir- 
 teen witches who were convicted, and had no 
 doubt as to the existence of the crime. Shake- 
 speare introduced witches in his plays, and fre- 
 quently recognized the popular belief in the devil 
 and his mode of action. Thus Hamlet says : — 
 
 ..." The spirit that I have seen 
 
 May be the devil ; and the devil hath power 
 
Il6 ADDRESSES. 
 
 To assume a pleasing shape ; yea, and perhaps 
 Out of my weakness and my melancholy, 
 (As he is very potent with such spirits) 
 Abuses me to damn me." 
 
 Wesley believed in witches even long after the 
 delusion had been generally abandoned. As late 
 as 1768 he lamented the prevailing scepticism, 
 and insisted that to give up witchcraft was in 
 effect to give up the Bible; and surely the 
 preacher of forty thousand sermons must have 
 been accustomed to weigh his words with care. 
 
 In England the epidemic reached its height 
 during the Commonwealth, and began to subside 
 early in the Restoration, as the result apparently 
 of no special action or revelation on the subject, 
 but simply because the better minds became in- 
 tolerant of the doctrine. Buckle says that in 
 1660 the majority of educated men still believed 
 in witchcraft, and in 1688 the majority rejected it. 
 The last judicial execution in England for this 
 crime took place about 17 16, and in 1736 the 
 statute was repealed. In Scotland, however, the 
 delusion prevailed to a later date, the trials and 
 executions continuing until 1722; and Macaulay 
 tells us that as late as 1773 the divines of the 
 Associated Presbytery passed a resolution declar- 
 ing their belief in witchcraft and deploring the 
 general scepticism. The attitude of the Scotch 
 clergy on this subject was most uncompromising. 
 To them the devil was as real as man. They 
 
THE RISE AND FALL OF THE DEVIL. WJ 
 
 saw him repeatedly in the form of dog or cat, 
 old crone, idiot, paralytic, or sceptic, and traced 
 his agency in sickness, sudden death, and all 
 misfortunes. 
 
 Buckle, in the chapter entitled " An Examina- 
 tion of the Scotch Intellect during the Seventeenth 
 Century," tells us that " whenever the preacher 
 mentioned Satan the consternation was so great 
 that the church resounded with sighs and groans. 
 . . . Not infrequently the people, benumbed 
 and stupefied with awe, were rooted to their 
 seats by the horrible fascination exercised over 
 them, which compelled them to listen, though 
 they are described as gasping for breath and with 
 their hair standing on end." 
 
 In the opinion of these divines, the devil owed 
 much of his power to his great experience. Thus 
 one declares : " The acquired knowledge of the 
 devil is great, he being an advancing student, 
 and still learning now above five thousand 
 years." 
 
 Another : " He knowes very well, partly by 
 the quickness of his nature and partly by long 
 experience, being now very near six thousand 
 years old." 
 
 Another: "He being compared with us hath 
 many vantages ; as that he is more subtill by na- 
 ture, being of great experience, and more ancient, 
 being now almost sixe thousand yeeres old." 
 
 In America the executions for witchcraft were 
 
Il8 ADDRESSES. 
 
 confined to the latter half of the seventeenth cen- 
 tury, and then, as in Europe, the delusion yielded 
 to the gradual change in sentiment. During its 
 prevalence some of the most distinguished men 
 of New England were subject to it. Governor 
 Winthrop presided at the trial of Margaret Jones 
 in 1648, and signed the death-warrant. Cotton 
 Mather, although vindicated by Mr. Poole against 
 the charge of undue zeal in promoting the trials 
 and executions, was a firm believer in witchcraft. 
 In his " Memorable Providences," published in 
 1 69 1, when the craze was at its height in New 
 England, he writes, — 
 
 " I am resolved after this never to use but just one 
 grain of patience with any man that shall go to impose 
 upon me a denial of devils or of witches. I shall count 
 that man ignorant who shall suspect ; but I shall count 
 him downright impudent if he asserts the non-exist- 
 ence of things which we have had such palpable con- 
 viction of." 
 
 To illustrate the temper of the prosecutions 
 in America, we cite a single case from the " Annals 
 of Salem." On June 28, 1692, Rebecca Nurse 
 was tried for witchcraft. " At first the jury 
 could find no verdict against her. Even on their 
 second return they had not found her guilty. 
 When, however, they were in their places and 
 she stood at the bar, they agreed on a verdict 
 against her because she made 1 o answer to some 
 
THE RISE AND FALL OF THE DEVIL. 1 19 
 
 interrogations about an expression which she had 
 uttered." And she was hung shortly afterward. 
 
 It is well known that Milton complained that 
 his wife would not talk enough, and that the 
 taciturnity of wives has been the bane of matri- 
 mony ever since ; but we believe this is the only 
 case on record where a woman was actually hung 
 for this fault, so characteristic of the sex. 
 
 We have shown that this madness was not con- 
 fined to the ignorant classes ; nor were its victims 
 drawn wholly from the poor and lowly. The list 
 embraces a bishop or two, clergymen, historical 
 characters, as, for instance, Joan of Arc, men of 
 all conditions, women, — especially the old and 
 ugly, — children scarcely more than babes, and 
 even certain animals, which were solemnly con- 
 victed as special agents of the devil; and the 
 number of those who suffered is almost incredible. 
 It is estimated that in the sixteenth and seven- 
 teenth centuries more than two hundred thou- 
 sand persons were executed, mostly burned, for 
 this crime in Europe, — one half of the number 
 being assigned to Germany and thirty thousand 
 to England ; while Dr. Sprenger, in his " Life of 
 Mohammed," estimates the number of such vic- 
 tims during the Christian epoch at nine millions, 
 though we have found no data which seem to 
 justify such a computation. 
 
 Of course many of the trials were farcical, the 
 evidence being of the flimsiest sort, scarcely more 
 
120 ADDRESSES. 
 
 satisfactory to the legal mind than the famous 
 test employed by the official witch-finder, Matthew- 
 Hopkins. He wrapped the suspected persons 
 in sheets, with the great toes and thumbs tied 
 together, and dragged them through a pond or 
 river. If they sunk, it was a sign that the bap- 
 tismal element did not reject them, and they 
 were cleared, — or if, as often happened, they 
 were drowned in the process, their names were 
 cleared, — but if they floated, they were deemed 
 guilty and burned. 
 
 In some of the trials, however, especially 
 toward the close of the prosecutions, the testi- 
 mony was such as would have been convincing in 
 any judicial investigation of that time. When 
 judge and jury firmly believed in the doctrine of 
 evil possession, the ill repute or uncanny aspect 
 of the accused made a prima facie case for the 
 prosecution ; and when the poor tortured victim, 
 crazed by superstitious terrors, was driven to 
 confess the charge, and out of a distempered 
 imagination to supply the usual background of 
 meetings and compacts with the devil, conviction 
 followed as a matter of course. 
 
 There is nothing in the whole history of witch- 
 craft which shows so clearly, to us of a later age, 
 the utterness of the delusion and its stupefying 
 effect upon the ordinary mind, as the frequency 
 and sincerity of these confessions. And yet to 
 the prosecutors they must have seemed the most 
 
THE RISE AND FALL OF THE DEVIL. 121 
 
 conclusive evidence. So, too, the long and almost 
 universal prevalence of the delusion must have 
 given to them assurance of its vital truth. In 
 short, there is no miracle of the. Church, nor any 
 tenet of her faith, which, tested by the common 
 rules of evidence, was more fully and variously 
 proven than this doctrine of evil possession. It 
 was older by uncounted centuries than Chris- 
 tianity, and had been held in substance by almost 
 or quite every people known to history. It was 
 taught by the Bible and by the Christian Fathers, 
 believed to be sanctioned by the Lord, and under 
 its sway millions had perished. It was attested 
 by multitudes of living witnesses, and even by 
 the dying confessions of its victims. Was ever 
 supernatural thing so evidenced? And yet we 
 find that within a single generation of men this 
 madness which had held the world for centuries 
 silently passed away. There was no violent or 
 extraordinary revolution of thought, — no sudden 
 emancipation of the mind by supernatural revela- 
 tion, — but a gradual and general translation from 
 superstition to common sense. 
 
 In reviewing the history of this march out of 
 bondage, we have not found that those who held 
 themselves the apostles of immortal truth were in 
 the van. To the Church the movement was 
 another passing of impious heretics to destruction, 
 — a masterly manoeuvre of the devil, who sought, 
 by instigating the repudiation of himself, to lead 
 
122 ADDRESSES. 
 
 his dupes away from the proper basis of theology, 
 — but the people listened to Montaigne, Voltaire, 
 and Hobbes, those arrant meddlers with the 
 ancient faith, and took the path toward intellect- 
 ual liberty. 
 
 We have said that the devil reached his prime 
 in the seventeenth century. At that time he was 
 feared more than God was loved, — perhaps more 
 than God was feared, though the more dreadful 
 calamities were commonly ascribed to the wrath 
 of God. At this time, too, Milton wrote his 
 splendid absurdities called " Paradise Lost," in 
 which he accredited Satan anew as the mighty 
 archangel, the leader of heavenly hosts, the re- 
 bellious and unconquered foe of God, the proud 
 spirit who found it " better to reign in hell than 
 serve in heaven," the subtle tempter of man, the 
 author of sin, and the absolute owner in fee of 
 nearly all the souls that God had created for 
 himself. 
 
 It was perhaps the proudest moment of his 
 life; but he was approaching a crisis in his 
 career. The belief in witchcraft died with the 
 century, and from that time we trace his decline. 
 But of course we do not mean to say that his 
 overthrow was complete, or that his decline has 
 been so rapid as to induce a confident hope that 
 our generation will behold his final extinction. 
 We refer to his fall as we speak of the close of 
 the next century, — not doubting that time will 
 
THE RISE AND FALL OF THE DEVIL. 123 
 
 compass it, — but not as an accomplished fact; 
 and of course we shall not assume to number his 
 declining years. In the science of facts infuturo, 
 a large allowance must be made for what may 
 happen of its own accord, without deference to 
 our plans ; and so in predicting this event, a mar- 
 gin of a few thousand years in fixing the date is 
 not an unreasonable demand. We concede that 
 he is not yet dead ; and although he has fallen 
 into comparative decrepitude, the signs of the 
 times indicate that he has not yet passed into 
 the stage of " innocuous desuetude." When the 
 world ceased to believe in the peculiar diabolical 
 manifestations known as witchcraft and to burn 
 people for impossible crimes, it certainly crippled 
 the old adversary, but failed to drive him from the 
 field ; just as, doubtless, the reformation of taste 
 by which man learned to love his neighbor living 
 better than his neighbor roasted, and ceased 
 hunting him for food, marked a great advance 
 toward spirituality, but did not utterly abolish 
 the carnal appetites. 
 
 We have referred to the devil's position in the 
 theology of past times. This position, though 
 somewhat shaken, he still retains. There is a 
 certain theological code, of pretty wide author- 
 ity, which contains a statute of limitations for the 
 protection of error, whereby it is forbidden to 
 question a fallacy after it has attained a certain 
 age. In this theology the devil still plays his 
 
124 ADDRESSES. 
 
 part as the responsible author and promoter of 
 sin in a world in which God has created every- 
 thing, devil included, and governs everything, 
 devil excluded, — a sort of animated firebrand let 
 loose to search out combustibles; an embodi- 
 ment of evil boldly confronting omnipotence; 
 a scourge to quicken love; a puzzle even to 
 priests and elders. He still serves the purpose 
 of the rousing exhorter, and we continue to pray 
 in good set terms for deliverance from his crafts 
 and assaults. While it is becoming the fashion 
 of orthodox churches to help their converts over 
 obstacles by assuring them that it is really not 
 essential to declare implicit faith in certain ab- 
 struse dogmas, there must be more concession 
 still — and it will come slowly — before the devil 
 can be consistently ignored. The dualism of 
 Zoroaster may sometime die out of Christian 
 theology ; but not until much of theology shall die 
 out of Christianity, — not until the Church shall 
 dare to doubt her Fathers and the premises which 
 make an insatiate devil and pitiless God twin 
 sequences. This change is probably not immi- 
 nent, for the Church is conservative. She dearly 
 loves the changeless vestments of her ancient 
 faith, her solemn liturgy whose words have sylla- 
 bled the praise and prayer of ages, and wisely 
 looks askance at innovation. And yet she moves. 
 Once she held the earth flat, the sun a nimble 
 satellite, the universe still young, and man a thing 
 
THE RISE AND FALL OF THE DEVIL. 125 
 
 of yesterday, because of words written by un- 
 known hands, in days unknown, of things mis- 
 understood ; but now she acknowledges the 
 antipodes, appreciates the sun, and grants anti- 
 quity to earth and man. The fires of hell were 
 kindled by the torch of superstition more than 
 two thousand years ago, and the Church for nearly 
 as long has pointed out the lurid flame to trem- 
 bling sinners ; but now this hell of fire is an ignis 
 fatuus of her past, and even the name, once so 
 potent, gives place to " sheol," which conveys to 
 the modern mind nothing more definite or ter- 
 rible than "Hades" or "Tartarus," " Orcus," 
 " Gehenna," or the " dark Plutonian shore." And 
 so the day may come when she will put away 
 her inscrutable dogmas and study the soul, the 
 great problem of life, as science studies her les- 
 ser problems. When this is done, she will re- 
 member that history is older than Christian 
 dogma, and ethics older than recorded history. 
 She will recall the ages that stretched forward to 
 the birth of Christ, — a period in which historic 
 time is but a day, — the splendid achievements 
 of that former time, the morals of Buddha and 
 Confucius, the refinements of Egypt and Greece, 
 and even the meditations of heathen philosophers 
 on the great phenomena of life and death. The 
 human mind, which has been the cradle of errors 
 innumerable, must be regarded as also the source 
 of revelation. No messenger from heaven or 
 
126 ADDRESSES. 
 
 supernatural miracle came with the eighteenth 
 century to prove the fallacy of witchcraft. The 
 human intellect wrought out for itself the correc- 
 tion of its error. No voice from the great keeper 
 of secrets came to tell the world that in the earth 
 or spaces of the air waited a messenger swift as 
 light to carry words around the world, or that out 
 of fire and water might be summoned a tractable 
 giant, or to explain the law of gravitation or any 
 principle of science. God stored away the facts 
 and left the human intellect to find its clews and 
 make discovery ; and if so strange and improb- 
 able a thing should happen as that the problems 
 of the soul should ever be fully solved for the 
 benefit of men on earth, the solution will come, 
 not from the clouds, but as the product of human 
 thought — perhaps the slow result of studious 
 ages — perhaps the intuition of some extraordi- 
 nary genius. 
 
 But putting aside the devil of theology, how is 
 it with the devil as a practical influence ? Is he 
 dying? Will he revive? Shall we measure the 
 remnant of his life by years or by centuries ? 
 
 It must appear, to all who care to observe, 
 that superstition has still a strong hold upon the 
 imagination. Let us consider our own people, 
 who certainly possess more than the average intel- 
 ligence and common-sense of the world; and if 
 we leave out of account the most ignorant classes, 
 black and white, to whom witchcraft is still a faith 
 
THE RISE AND FALL OF THE DEVIL. 1 27 
 
 and terror, it is yet safe to say that a majority 
 will still be found to have a secret or professed 
 faith in the supernatural. It is still a common 
 thing to say of some wretched criminal that he is 
 possessed of or controlled by the devil, instead 
 of saying that he is possessed of a criminal or 
 besotted ancestry and controlled by his heritage 
 of animalism, ignorance, poverty, and vicious 
 associations ; and there is still a lurking dread of 
 occult influences. The belief in lucky days and 
 numbers, dreams, omens, charms, and horoscopes 
 attests the fact. Doubtless many a fair maiden 
 of our acquaintance, conscious that her natural 
 charms are not of the repellent sort, arms herself 
 against the ghostly enemy by wearing a horse- 
 shoe on her chatelaine or a cherub's wish-bone in 
 her bodice. But we are able to support our 
 proposition by evidence much more direct and 
 conclusive. Nearly every community has its cir- 
 cle of spiritualists, many of whom are persons of 
 education and marked intelligence, who sincerely 
 believe that they are visited by the spirits of the 
 departed. Certain of them profess to be able, by 
 reason of some peculiarity of organization or 
 temperament, to establish communication with the 
 spirit-land, to do by ghostly assistance things 
 otherwise impossible, to discover secrets, to 
 predict coming events, to advise with superhuman 
 wisdom, and even to materialize their disembodied 
 visitors and make them seen and felt. Without 
 
128 ADDRESSES. 
 
 stopping to discuss at length the so-called phe- 
 nomena of spiritualism, let it suffice that they 
 have provoked the careful investigation of non- 
 believers, even scientific men, and that among 
 those who reject the claims of the spiritualists 
 there are many who are puzzled to explain the 
 manifestations they have witnessed without con- 
 ceding the possibility of spiritual agency ; and it 
 needs no argument to show how easily one may 
 slide from the belief in a trance-medium into the 
 real old-fashioned doctrine of witchcraft. 
 
 So in the healing art the reliance upon mys- 
 terious powers is very common. One person 
 wears a red string about his neck as a safeguard 
 against colds or rheumatism; another puts his 
 faith in the egg of a black hen laid in the full of 
 the moon. A few years ago it was believed by 
 a large portion of our people that blue glass 
 possessed the remarkable power to convert the 
 sun's rays into a quick remedy for all diseases ; 
 and to-day an equal number of our best people, 
 many of them thoughtful and critical minds, 
 honestly believe that one person may find in 
 the will or concentrated thought of another, 
 without recourse to medication or hygiene, a 
 cure for every ailment from a broken heart to 
 a bald head. Of course the advocates of the 
 mind cure will defend it, without resort to magic, 
 by reference to known phenomena of mind and 
 matter, — perhaps in accordance with Bacon's 
 
THE RISE AND FALL OF THE DEVIL. 129 
 
 theory that sympathy might cure warts ; but on 
 the other hand may it not be — just possibly — 
 a survival of orthodox witchcraft? It is well 
 known that in old times there were divers sorts of 
 witches, some wholly and ostentatiously wicked, 
 and others ostensibly good. These later were 
 known as "white witches." They came to the 
 sick and healed them without drugs or fee ; but 
 it was generally understood that the patient was 
 thereby put under such obligations to their mas- 
 ter the devil as no man could safely discharge. 
 
 As this subject is one of practical and growing 
 importance, let us call up a very wise and pious 
 man who studied it two hundred years ago, and 
 examine him as a sort of diabolical expert. The 
 Rev. Increase Mather, in his " Remarkable Provi- 
 dences," published in 1684, says with reference to 
 these irregular healers : — 
 
 " Let such practitioners think the best of them- 
 selves, they are too near akin to those creatures 
 who commonly pass under the name of 'white 
 witches.' They that do hurt to others by the 
 devil's help are called ' black witches ; ' but there 
 are a sort of persons in the world that will never 
 hurt any ; but only by the power of the infernal 
 spirits they will unbewitch those that seek unto 
 them for relief. I know that by Constantius his 
 law black witches were to be punished, and white 
 ones indulged ; but Mr. Perkins saith, that the 
 good witch is a more horrible and detestable 
 
 9 
 
130 ADDRESSES. 
 
 monster than the bad one. Balaam was a black 
 witch, and Simon Magus a white one. This lat- 
 ter did more hurt by his cures than the former 
 by his curses." And again, " The persons thus 
 recovered cannot say ' The Lord was my healer,' 
 but, 'The Devil was my healer.' Certainly it 
 were better for a man to remain sick all his days, 
 yea, (as Chrysostom speaks), he had better die 
 than go to the devil for help." 
 
 It seems to have been as dangerous in that 
 time to be healed by a white witch as in these 
 days for one who has succeeded in growing up 
 under the regular practitioner to be cured by the 
 white pellets of homoeopathy. Better die of a 
 drug-store than live without medicine. 
 
 Of course we do not pretend that this is real 
 witchcraft ; but if we admit that one person may 
 by his will remove the disease of another, it will 
 be easy enough to believe he may in like manner 
 produce disease in another; and under the old 
 law this would make him a witch. 
 
 Such considerations lead to the conclusion that 
 the faith which found expression in witchcraft 
 has never been wholly abandoned; but even if 
 it had been, we should hardly feel secure from 
 its recurrence. 
 
 Darwin tell us that men sometimes, by what he 
 terms " reversion," reproduce peculiarities of a 
 remote ancestor. Thus, for example, if Mr. 
 Smith of the last century was differentiated by a 
 
THE RISE AND FALL OF THE DEVIL. 131 
 
 blue nose, his great-grandson, Mr. Smythe of 
 to-day, may be similarly distinguished, notwith- 
 standing an intermediate line of white or red 
 noses ; or, if the Englishman of the seventeenth 
 century devoutly believed in witches, some true 
 Briton may be born to-day in Boston who shall 
 grow up in the same belief. And so there is 
 some ground for apprehension lest our people — 
 our best people — may discover that witchcraft 
 was " Early English," and revert to it. Or, if we 
 reject the term " reversion " as Darwinian and 
 therefore wicked, let us regard the same idea 
 under cover of the goodly word " revival." Tyler 
 demonstrates in his " Primitive Culture " that 
 witchcraft, far from being a product of mediae- 
 valism, was a revival from remote days of 
 primeval history ; that prior to its revival in the 
 thirteenth century it suffered a decline almost to 
 extinction. So also spiritualism in this century 
 is, " in great measure, a direct revival from the 
 regions of savage philosophy and peasant folk- 
 lore." " Planchette " was known in Europe in 
 the seventeenth century, and revived in America 
 within our times; while the mind-cure is but a 
 recurrence of that intermittent fever of the popu- 
 lar imagination which may be said to be con- 
 genital with the race. Who knows what fashion 
 of devil, worn and discarded by some former age, 
 we may live to see revived by ours? 
 
 There is yet another source of danger which a 
 
132 ADDRESSES. 
 
 lofty sense of duty, rising superior to all consid- 
 erations of personal safety, constrains us to men- 
 tion. Plato tells us, and it was contended by 
 the Alexandrian school and is now admitted by 
 modern science, that there are women in the 
 world. And what is woman? Solomon says 
 that to understand her is the beginning of insan- 
 ity, or something to that effect; Cato declared 
 that " if the world were only free from women, 
 men would not be without the converse of the 
 gods ; " meaning, doubtless, that the gods might 
 then be heard. 
 
 Chrysostom pronounced her " a necessary evil, a 
 natural temptation, a desirable calamity, a domes- 
 tic peril, a deadly fascination, and a painted ill; " 
 and the long history of the strained relations be- 
 tween earth and heaven shows that woman was 
 implicated, if not wholly in fault. According to 
 the rabbinical legend Adam was twice married ; 
 and it is a fact well known in the family, but 
 seldom mentioned, that his first wife, Lilith, 
 having quarrelled with him on the question of 
 headship, ran away with a person of dubious 
 character and strong sulphurous odor ; and when 
 her successor, Eve, saw the snake in the garden, 
 did she step on him as a right-minded lady would 
 naturally do ? Alas ! far otherwise. Painful as it 
 is to criticise the conduct of our own mother, we 
 are bound to say that if upon this occasion she 
 had treated the devil according to his character 
 
THE RISE AND FALL OF THE DEVIL. 133 
 
 and personal appearance, instead of taking his 
 advice with a deference due only to archbishops 
 and lawyers, he would probably have turned his 
 attention to the inhabitants of some other planet 
 and left man as he found him, — only a little lower 
 than the angels, and far more interesting. 
 
 Now, without going so far as to impute her 
 action to inherent naughtiness or a desire to make 
 trouble in society, we may at least suppose that 
 she was over-credulous, and that this weakness 
 has made others of her sex the especial objects of 
 similar attacks ever since. Was not the Witch of 
 Endor a woman? Were not the victims of the 
 witchcraft prosecutions almost all women? Are 
 not the women of to-day constantly imposed upon 
 by masculine romance in a way that makes Eve 
 seem wary and suspicious? And, finally, is there 
 not in woman a subtle witchery that no man shall 
 gainsay ~ or withstand? Does not man love her 
 more than anything else in the world — except him- 
 self — and trust her more implicitly than even math- 
 ematics or natural laws? Let us remember also 
 that woman is numerous. The census embraces 
 millions of her. (" Happy rascal ! " a Frenchman 
 exclaims.) In New England she is said to exist 
 in the proportion of one woman to seven-eighths 
 of a man. And yet she has been held in subjec- 
 tion by this fractional tyrant, who has forbidden 
 her to vote, or to go to war or Congress. Let us 
 then suppose that after a time she wearies of 
 
134 ADDRESSES. 
 
 bondage and dreams of revolt ; and that in that 
 fatal hour the tempter shall persuade her that a 
 little punishment and discipline would improve 
 the flavor of man and do him a real kindness ; 
 and it will be easy to imagine that, with the 
 highest motives, those who now possess us only 
 to our great content may be led to play the 
 devil with us after the old fashion. 
 
 With all these tendencies and possibilities in 
 view, we cannot say that the devil is dead, or even 
 that he will never recover his pristine vigor. The 
 world moves on, but not with equal pace. 
 " Vestigia nulla retrorsum " is the law of progress 
 only in the dreams of youth. Experience traces 
 the backward steps full easily. It was Tennyson 
 the boy who " dipt into the future, far as human 
 eye could see, Saw the vision of the world and all 
 the wonders that would be," and saw no back- 
 ward steps ; but Tennyson the old man, " Full of 
 sad experience, moving toward the stillness of his 
 rest," now writes of 
 
 " Evolution ever climbing after some ideal good, 
 And Reversion ever dragging Evolution in the mud," 
 
 and finds that " Progress halts on palsied feet," 
 and bids us 
 
 " Still remember how the course of time will swerve, 
 Crook, and turn upon itself in many a backward streaming 
 curve." 
 
 Who knows what backward flow may sweep us 
 
THE RISE AND FALL OF THE DEVIL. 135 
 
 once again into the gloom of long ago? Yet the 
 world loves better the poet of youth and hope. 
 Yet we 
 
 " doubt not through the ages one increasing purpose runs, 
 And the thoughts of men are widened by the process of 
 the suns." 
 
A TRIP TO THE NIPIGON. 
 
 Read before the Chicago Literary Club 
 on June 3, 1889. 
 
 THE season is now at hand when we, like 
 other good citizens, may lay aside those 
 things which we are accustomed to call the 
 burdens of professional and business life, and 
 seek for recreation, each according to his taste, 
 his means, or the needs of those for whose wel- 
 fare he is most solicitous. 
 
 To one the mention of a summer vacation 
 suggests some quiet spot in the country, perhaps 
 by a pretty lake, with grass and shade for the 
 children. In another it awakens recollections of 
 the seashore and the sea, or the mountains, the 
 forest camp, or the river and canoe. 
 
 And because the summer sun and soft air and 
 the new foliage and flowers have set me to dream- 
 ing of summer days well spent and well remem- 
 bered, I propose to tell this evening the story of 
 how two friends escaped the heat and turmoil of 
 the city and the weariness of daily life, and found 
 rest and health and the keenest of pleasurable 
 sensations in a Northern wilderness. 
 
A TRIP TO THE NIPIGON. 137 
 
 In July, 1878, a friend who had made several 
 fishing trips to the rivers of Northern Michigan 
 and the shores of Lake Superior, proposed to me 
 an excursion to the Nipigon River, — a stream 
 of considerable size flowing into Lake Superior 
 from the north, somewhat noted for its wild 
 scenery, and famous among sportsmen as the 
 finest trout-stream in America. 
 
 At that time the Nipigon was difficult of access. 
 It could be reached at long intervals by steam- 
 boat from Duluth, and otherwise only by a long 
 and somewhat dangerous trip by sailboat. This 
 fact, together with the time required, and the 
 elaborate provision to be made in the way of 
 camp outfit and supplies, deterred most sports- 
 men from attempting the trip. My friend, how- 
 ever, is, as you all know, a gentleman who delights 
 in hard tasks, and is always ready to join in any 
 difficult undertaking upon the sole condition that 
 he shall be allowed to do most of the work ; and 
 knowing this peculiarity, I accepted his proposi- 
 tion and even assented to this condition. So 
 without taking time to be assisted by me, he went 
 ahead and made the necessary preparations. 
 
 By correspondence with the managers of a line 
 of Canadian steamers running to Duluth, he ar- 
 ranged to have a certain boat take us at the Sault 
 Ste. Marie, and land us at the mouth of the 
 Nipigon on its westward trip. He then bought 
 supplies, — flour, pork, canned meats, tea, coffee, 
 
138 ADDRESSES. 
 
 condensed milk, hard-tack, and other things too 
 numerous to be now remembered, — and had 
 them packed in boxes of a size convenient for 
 carrying, each box being numbered and its con- 
 tents recorded in a general index. 
 
 He also had his fine tents and camp outfit 
 overhauled and put in order, superintended the 
 purchase of fishing-tackle, and took thought con- 
 cerning woollen socks, hobnailed shoes, rubber 
 coats, mosquito-netting, needles and thread, and 
 other details. In the mean time I was not idle. 
 I talked about the importance of getting things 
 ready, and strapped my own valise when it was 
 packed. 
 
 Having thus prepared ourselves, we left Chi- 
 cago on the 1 8th day of July, and proceeded by 
 steamer to the Sault. Here we were compelled 
 to wait a day for the boat which was to take us 
 across Lake Superior ; and while thus detained we 
 fell in with a gentleman from Indiana, who was 
 on his way to the North Shore. 
 
 He was a keen sportsman, and very anxious to 
 visit the Nipigon ; and as he seemed a compan- 
 ionable man, we invited him to join our party, 
 which he was apparently very glad to do, and so 
 together we embarked for Nipigon Bay, where we 
 expected to get Indians and canoes for the river. 
 
 The next morning we awoke to find ourselves 
 drifting in a dense fog among the islands of the 
 North Shore, about fifty miles from the river. 
 
A TRIP TO THE NIPIGON. 1 39 
 
 The Captain had not taken this course for 
 many years, and feared to proceed ; and so, after 
 waiting some hours in vain for the fog to lift, he 
 proposed to steam out into the lake and make 
 for Duluth. This, of course, meant for us a long 
 detour, and the probable defeat of our plans, and 
 therefore we induced him to return to a light- 
 house, on one of the islands we had just passed, 
 to enable us to inquire about other means of 
 transportation. Fortunately we found on this 
 island a band of Indians who had a sailboat, — 
 an old and battered craft, but still staunch and 
 large enough for our purpose, — and here we 
 took leave of the steamer, and intrusted our selves 
 and possessions to the guileless savages, who 
 agreed for such and such moneys to carry us 
 to the Nipigon. 
 
 Of this trip I will not stop to speak in detail, 
 though it was not without interest and incident. 
 Failing to make the run, as we had hoped, in one 
 day, we were compelled to land on a rocky island 
 and make camp for the night, — by no means a 
 pleasant experience, as it involved a general un- 
 packing and repacking of outfit, and the camp 
 was a most uncomfortable one. 
 
 Our Indians, four in number, could not speak 
 or understand English, and the sign language is 
 not especially adapted to a dark night in a dense 
 thicket; hence some confusion and a little pro- 
 fanity, — the latter being executed by the gen- 
 
140 ADDRESSES. 
 
 tleman from Indiana, but promptly forgiven by 
 the gentlemen from Illinois. 
 
 The leader of these Indians was a tall, splendid 
 fellow, silent and grave, with regular features and 
 a thoughtful mien, — in marked contrast to the 
 others. We grew to regard him with an admi- 
 ration akin to awe; and even when it became 
 apparent that he considered us but ordinary 
 dudes and frivolous, we still admired him. 
 
 The next morning we reached Red Rock, the 
 Hudson Bay Company's post at the mouth of the 
 Nipigon, and after dismissing our crew, were in- 
 terested to learn that our noble chief — he of the 
 lofty countenance and serious eyes — was the 
 most distinguished thief in all that Northern 
 country. But still we admired him; and for 
 days thereafter, especially on failing to find 
 some useful articles formerly of our baggage, 
 we would speak of him in terms of affectionate 
 remembrance. 
 
 At Red Rock we engaged two large birch-bark 
 canoes and four Indians, or half-breeds, to man 
 them ; and after purchasing from the agent further 
 supplies for these men, and waiting for the canoes 
 to be freshly gummed, we started early the next 
 morning for our trip up the river. 
 
 My friend and I occupied one canoe, with two 
 of the guides and part of the baggage, and the 
 gentleman from Indiana took the other, with two 
 guides and the remainder of the baggage. 
 
A TRIP TO THE NIPIGON. 141 
 
 Each canoe was large enough to carry a load 
 of nearly or quite a thousand pounds, and yet so 
 light as to be readily borne on the shoulders of 
 two men at the portages. Each was fitted out 
 with roughly made rowlocks and oars ; but as a 
 rule our Indians used the paddle, — one sitting at 
 the stern and the other kneeling at the bow ; we 
 reclined amidships, propped up by rolls of blank- 
 ets, travelling bags, and other soft impedimenta 
 of the party. In the arrangement of our section, 
 my friend displayed his usual energy and taste 
 for the luxurious, and the result was a couch on 
 which Cleopatra might have reclined in her favor- 
 ite yachting suit with perfect comfort, — it was so 
 smooth and soft. 
 
 By this achievement, and a long series of 
 devices for my comfort, and incidentally his own, 
 he won and retained the title of the Sybarite, by 
 which he will henceforth appear in this truthful 
 record. 
 
 During this first day's journey we made no 
 attempt at fishing, having determined to push 
 on as rapidly as possible to the better fishing- 
 grounds of the upper river; so we had nothing 
 to do but to enjoy the wild scenery and the novel 
 pleasure of canoeing. Reclining at ease, the 
 Sybarite with his baleful cigarette and I with my 
 harmless pipe, we glided over the smooth water 
 where the river widens into a pretty lake, or 
 crept slowly along beneath the overhanging 
 
142 ADDRESSES. 
 
 branches of the trees, where the Indians labori- 
 ously held our boat up against the swift current 
 in the narrows. The clear, bracing air, the chang- 
 ing beauties of rocks and trees, dark pools and 
 tumbling rapids, the constant laughter and 
 strange language of our guides, and our own 
 bright anticipations of glorious sport ahead, — all 
 combined to make this day delightful. The 
 sense of freedom, the feeling that we were leav- 
 ing far behind us the vexing cares of life, and 
 above all the delicious intoxication of woollen 
 shirts and soft hats, quite overcame us. We 
 cracked jokes on the unheeding Indians, laughed 
 long and loud at stories we had often heard in 
 silence, and even sang songs, — that is, the Syba- 
 rite and I sang; but for some reason which I 
 never could divine, the gentleman from Indiana, 
 who at home was a teacher of vocal music and a 
 singer of renown, did not join us. 
 
 Early in the afternoon we reached Camp Alex- 
 ander, at the foot of the first portage, and made 
 camp; or rather we left two Indians to make 
 camp, and, taking the others and one canoe, forced 
 our way a little distance up the river, with intent 
 to catch some trout for our supper. This was 
 easily accomplished. 
 
 In less than an hour we had taken as many 
 trout as we dared to think of eating that night, 
 and returned to find our camp in order and the 
 kitchen fire waiting for our fish. The trout taken 
 
A TRIP TO THE NIPIGON. 143 
 
 here were small, running from a pound to a pound 
 and a half in weight, but very numerous and 
 eager for the fly. I 'find by reference to my notes 
 that I used two flies and took five pairs, besides 
 several single fish; and I am willing to admit 
 that the Sybarite surpassed me, although it is not 
 a fact. 
 
 Here we made the important discovery that our 
 chief guide, Frangois, was a capital cook. At 
 least, he knew how to broil trout ; and probably 
 he discovered that we knew how to eat them. 
 Here, too, we made the acquaintance of Francois's 
 interesting family, which had followed us up the 
 river in two canoes, and camped near us. This 
 family consisted of an old squaw, two middle-aged 
 squaws, and a lot of children. 
 
 The old squaw we took to be his mother, the 
 other two his wives, or perhaps his wife and a 
 visiting friend, and the children we classified as 
 young Indians, without attempting to trace their 
 parentage. We wondered how they had managed 
 to ascend the river, and why they had followed 
 us, but could get no explanation from Francois 
 except that they were going somewhere. 
 
 We learned also that they were omnivorous, — 
 at least, nothing in our larder came amiss to them, 
 — and realized that a few days of their society 
 would breed a famine in the camp. But after the 
 pleasures of the day we were too complaisant to 
 be easily disturbed by such reflections, and there- 
 
144 ADDRESSES. 
 
 fore enjoyed our evening about the camp-fire, and 
 then betook ourselves to our tents and fragrant 
 beds of balsam boughs, at peace with all the 
 world. 
 
 The next day we made the long portage to the 
 head of the rapids, carrying light loads ourselves 
 and leaving the Indians to follow with the canoes 
 and baggage. 
 
 As the distance was about two miles, and sev- 
 eral trips were required, it was quite noon before 
 the task was accomplished and we were again 
 afloat, and nearly dark before we reached our 
 camp at the lower end of Pine Portage. 
 
 Francois's family had started before us in the 
 morning, and we found them encamped here, 
 anxiously awaiting the arrival of our party and 
 supplies ; so we were relieved of all fear lest the 
 trout we had taken en route should be wasted. 
 
 The next morning, after an early breakfast, we 
 started across the portage, and, after walking over 
 a mile, took a narrow path diverging to the right, 
 and followed it down a steep and heavily wooded 
 hill to the river at a point called Hamilton's Pool, 
 a favorite spot with those who fish the Nipigon. 
 
 Here the river, parted by a small island, plunges 
 by short and broken rapids into a pool several 
 acres in extent, near the centre of which the mass 
 of waters divides into two strong currents, — one 
 setting back along the shore to the entrance of 
 the rapids, and the other sweeping down to the 
 
A TRIP TO THE NIPIGON. 145 
 
 outlet in the rapids below. At the head of the 
 pool the water seems to boil up from unfathom- 
 able depths and then rushes and eddies around 
 the great masses of rocks on the eastern shore. 
 
 On the western shore the land slopes down to 
 a little meadow, by which the water is quiet and 
 shallow and the bottom of smooth sand. 
 
 It was at this point that we approached the 
 pool, and looking into the clear water beheld a 
 sight which caused us to draw back and open 
 our rod-cases with nervous haste. There, close 
 under the shore, were a dozen fine trout, not one 
 of them less than eighteen inches in length, and 
 not a tree or tall bush near enough to interfere 
 with the play of our lines. 
 
 We felt that this was our appointed day and 
 hour, and each man jointed his rod and hastened 
 to adjust his line, leader, and flies, as if his soul's 
 salvation depended on his getting the first catch 
 in that pool. 
 
 It was terrible. The selfish instinct, which 
 generally lies dormant in such breasts as ours, was 
 aroused, and all the evil passions of the human 
 heart were getting into action, when the Sybarite, 
 who had gotten into a tangle and fallen behind, 
 proposed that we should wait until all were ready 
 and then cast together. This was agreed to, and 
 so we waited until he, noticing that we had put 
 but one fly on our leaders, quietly noosed two on 
 his, and then together we approached the bank and 
 
I46 ADDRESSES. 
 
 made our cast. Each fly was taken as it touched 
 the water, and four fish, securely hooked, darted 
 out into the deep pool ; and then there was the 
 sight of leaping trout, the music of clicking reels, 
 and the strain of the pliant rods for nearly half an 
 hour, and then four beauties lying on the grass, 
 and two plain men and the Sybarite standing 
 over them and feeling that life is worth living. 
 
 These four trout were of nearly uniform size, and 
 together weighed over nine pounds. 
 
 The sport so well begun continued until we 
 had taken eighteen fine trout, weighing in the 
 aggregate forty-four pounds, and then, our In- 
 dians having brought our baggage over the 
 carry, we devoted ourselves to making camp, — 
 which we did with especial care, as we had 
 resolved to spend some days at this attractive 
 spot. 
 
 While we were thus engaged, Frangois's faithful 
 family came trooping down the path and selected 
 as a place of residence the immediate neighbor- 
 hood of our kitchen and supply tent. 
 
 We felt that something must be done ; and that 
 evening we invited Francois to enter our pres- 
 ence, and proceeded to discuss the situation with 
 him. For a time the fact that he understood but 
 few words of the various languages at our com- 
 mand threatened to defeat the object of the 
 meeting. 
 
 We tried English, in short words with panto- 
 
A TRIP TO THE NIPIGON. l/tf 
 
 mime accompaniments, but each reference to his 
 family served only to call a proud smile to his 
 puzzled face. Then the Sybarite bethought him- 
 self of French, which was supposed to enter into 
 the language of these natives ; but as he declined, 
 even in such an emergency, to disguise his pure 
 Parisian accent and idioms, the untutored savage 
 merely drank in the music of his words, without 
 the slightest comprehension of his arguments. 
 
 German he seemed to fear, and Latin quota- 
 tions proved as ineffectual as all the rest. And 
 yet we succeeded. In many tongues we told him 
 that while we were naturally fond of female soci- 
 ety and doted on children, yet we had come to 
 this remote wilderness to see if we could live 
 without such luxuries, and did not wish to have 
 our experience interfered with ; that it gave us, 
 as mere humanitarians, exquisite pleasure to see 
 his dear ones so happy with our provisions, but 
 that while we did n't mind going hungry for a few 
 weeks, we felt that we owed it to our own dependent 
 families not to starve beyond a certain point on 
 this pleasure-trip. And then, having thus fully 
 explained our motives, we executed certain ma- 
 noeuvres in the direction of his flock which evi- 
 dently convinced him of our unsocial desires ; for 
 the next morning the women and children had 
 disappeared, and certain of our edibles were said 
 to have been taken by wild beasts. 
 
 At this camp we spent a week, fishing in the 
 
148 ADDRESSES. 
 
 morning and evening, and reading novels, talk- 
 ing trout, and taking naps in the middle of the 
 day. 
 
 The sport continued to be excellent; and we 
 found it necessary, in order to prevent the taking 
 of more trout than we could use, to limit the 
 hours of fishing and to release all trout appearing 
 to be under two pounds in weight. 
 
 Here is the record, as I find it in my notes, of 
 my own experiences, on the third day of our stay 
 at this pool. I read it, not in a vainglorious 
 spirit, but because it serves to give some idea of 
 the sport at this place, and especially because it 
 supplies the description of a fight between a trout 
 and a fly-rod which no such narrative should be 
 without. 
 
 The next morning I arose early, and, leaving 
 my companions asleep, took two of the guides 
 with a canoe and went across the pool to try the 
 early fishing by the other shore. I found the 
 trout eager, and returned to camp before break- 
 fast with a string of nine, averaging about two 
 pounds. After breakfast we all fished, and at 
 noon my catch had increased to twenty-five, and 
 I felt constrained to stop for the day. 
 
 The others went out again, and I lounged in 
 the tent with a novel ; but I found the book not 
 half so fascinating as the broad pool in front of 
 me, on the further side of which I could see the 
 Sybarite standing with bent rod and taut line try- 
 
A TRIP TO THE NIPIGON. 149 
 
 ing the mettle of some brave captive in the depths 
 below; and finally, under pretext of trying a 
 new fly of extraordinary hues which I had con- 
 structed, and feeling that I should be excusable 
 in killing any fish that could be deceived by such 
 a patent fraud, I took my rod and strolled alone, 
 with my pipe and book, down the shore. Just 
 below our camp was a large rock standing well 
 out from the shore in the heavy current, and, mak- 
 ing my way to this, I tried a few casts, but without 
 getting a rise; so I lit my pipe, and, stretching 
 myself on the rock, devoted myself alternately to 
 reading my book and watching my friends in the 
 canoes. Soon, however, I noticed the trout leap- 
 ing, and determined to try again ; and for some 
 reason, perhaps for the purpose of trying my new 
 fly in competition with the standard article, 
 noosed a brown hackle in the leader above, and 
 made a cast with the two flies. 
 
 As they settled lightly on the water, I saw the 
 quick flash of leaping trout, and the next instant 
 my reel fairly screamed, as the startled game 
 rushed down the stream. 
 
 I could not tell whether I had hooked one fish 
 or two, but I knew that I had never seen so 
 strong a run as that. I tried cautiously to check 
 it; but there was too much life and strength at 
 the end of my line, and the slender silk flew 
 through the rings until I had but a single layer 
 on the reel and the fish had almost reached the 
 
15O ADDRESSES. 
 
 rapids below, in which such tackle could not have 
 held for a moment. Now for the test of my little 
 rod. I checked the line, and the slender bamboo 
 took the strain and bent under it until it seemed 
 that it must fly in pieces, but it held ; and with 
 struggles that sent a quiver through rod and arm 
 clear to my shoulder, the gallant fish rose slowly 
 to the surface just above the rapids, and, hanging 
 there a moment, yielded to the rod and came 
 slowly back. 
 
 I thought this furious run had exhausted the 
 game, and reeled in with confidence; but after 
 coming about fifty feet in a sullen, reluctant way, 
 the trout made another rush, apparently as fresh 
 as ever, but this time across the current. Again 
 the rod won, and I received my line only to meet 
 another run ; and so the fight went on. In half 
 an hour from the time I struck, one of the guides 
 came down from the camp with a landing net, and 
 I got in line enough to see that I had two fish, 
 one well spent, but the other still strong, and it 
 was some time longer before they could be safely 
 brought to net. They weighed three pounds and 
 two and one half pounds respectively, and were as 
 fine and vigorous trout as I ever saw. 
 
 I then returned to the camp content to stop ; 
 my catch for the day being twenty-seven fish, 
 weighing over sixty-two pounds. 
 
 Here we had a call from two gentlemen from 
 Massachusetts who were going down the river. 
 
A TRIP TO THE NIPIGON. 15 1 
 
 They reported the fishing good at several points 
 above, and the trout larger than in this pool. 
 
 These were the only white men we saw on the 
 river, and we gladly entertained them with the 
 best our camp afforded, and on their departure 
 sent letters to be mailed by them in the States. 
 
 It was at this camp that the Nipigon mosquito, 
 which had been enamoured of our persons ever 
 since we reached the river, fairly outdid himself 
 in acts of devotion, and impressed himself indeli- 
 bly on our memories. He is a bird resembling 
 the curlew in general appearance and bony struc- 
 ture, having a morbid thirst for blood and the 
 entree of every man. He is believed to be strictly 
 carnivorous, and lives on the fat of the land. The 
 only thing that checks his appetite for the human 
 countenance is a thick coating of tar and oil ; and 
 the only objection to the tar and oil is that the 
 odor clings to a man even unto the third and 
 fourth generation. 
 
 After a week at this spot we broke camp and 
 started up the river, intending to follow it to its 
 source in Lake Nipigon, and hoping to find the 
 traditional five-pounder without which we felt that 
 we could never return to our homes. 
 
 We found the river narrower, and the rapids 
 more frequent and difficult, but made good pro- 
 gress, and early in the afternoon camped about a 
 mile below the Grand Chute at the head of the 
 river. 
 
152 ADDRESSES. 
 
 Here we spent some days, making short excur- 
 sions in our canoes to the rapids below and to the 
 falls at Lake Nipigon, and seldom failing of good 
 sport. On the occasion of our first visit to the 
 falls, the Sybarite took a fine trout weighing five 
 and one half pounds and measuring twenty-two 
 and one half inches in length ; and each day trout 
 of four to five pounds were taken. 
 
 One day we carried a canoe around the falls and 
 paddled about among the islands at the lower end 
 of Lake Nipigon. This lake, which appears on the 
 map as a mere dot, is about ninety miles long and 
 sixty miles wide, and its outlet, the Nipigon River, 
 is about thirty-five miles long, and is said to have 
 a fall of three hundred and twenty-seven feet in 
 this distance. 
 
 Our trip down the river was easily made. The 
 paddles of our savage guides, aided by the swift 
 current, bore us rapidly along, and in several 
 places we shot the rapids, which in ascending the 
 river we had carried around. 
 
 In this there was great excitement. The watch- 
 ful guides, firmly braced at either end of the 
 canoes, with paddles poised for the quick, sure 
 stroke that was needed from time to time to guide 
 the frail boat past hidden rocks, and hoarsely 
 shouting to each other above the noise of plung- 
 ing waters ; the passing of the canoe ; the dash- 
 ing spray, — these things it is easy and pleasant 
 to recall. 
 
A TRIP TO THE NIPIGON. 1 53 
 
 Had it not been for our perfect confidence in 
 the skill of our boatmen, we should have felt that 
 to shoot these rapids was about as dangerous as 
 to shoot ourselves. 
 
 Having ample time to reach Red Rock before 
 the steamboat which was to take us could arrive, 
 we stopped from time to time at the pools and 
 rapids and easily kept up our supply of trout. 
 
 One of these occasions I recall with mingled 
 feelings of pride and shame. 
 
 At one of the portages, while the guides were 
 engaged in transporting the boats and baggage, 
 I left the party, and going to a little pool below 
 the rapids made a few casts and soon succeeded 
 in landing a fine trout, twenty-three inches long. 
 I weighed him carefully, at once, for a fish 
 loses weight in drying, and ought to be weighed 
 promptly. 
 
 I was alone. No human eye but mine saw the 
 figures on the steelyard. Then, as I walked back 
 to my friends, knowing that they would admire 
 my trout and immediately demand his weight, 
 and feeling reasonably certain that they would 
 take any statement as conclusive on that point, 
 I was sorely tempted. I reflected that, ever since 
 the episode of Jonah and his whale, strict accu- 
 racy had never been required of our race in fish 
 stories, and that the best of men, even clergymen 
 and presidents of literary clubs, had cultivated 
 the habit of embellishing such narratives without 
 
154 ADDRESSES. 
 
 impairing their general reputation for veracity. 
 I recalled a conversation with a certain distin- 
 guished member of this club, and how he told 
 me that on the Matapedia he had hooked a fifty 
 pound salmon through the left ear-lobe, and 
 killed him after a thrilling contest of nineteen 
 hours and seven minutes, and how, when I ven- 
 tured to suggest that salmon were not ordinarily 
 equipped with ear-lobes, he assured me that that 
 was the curious thing about it, — that this was 
 the only salmon ever seen with such appendages ; 
 and how I then gave it up ; and I reflected that, 
 notwithstanding such lapses from the straight and 
 narrow path, this gentleman's word was com- 
 monly accepted when he spoke of the weather, 
 or mentioned how he felt, or said what he would 
 take, or in any of the ordinary concerns of life. 
 I knew it was an axiom in anthropology that no 
 man ever caught a big fish and told the exact 
 truth about it, and I shrank from posing as a 
 freak ; and so by the time I rejoined my friends, 
 the question of conscience was settled, and so I 
 said the trout weighed just five pounds. I have 
 repeated this statement at intervals for more than 
 ten years, and all the time I have known that it 
 was false. This will surprise you. I do not at- 
 tempt to account for it; but being resolved no 
 longer to bear about the heavy secret of this my 
 first and only lie, I simply confess it, and take 
 this occasion publicly to declare that the exact 
 
A TRIP TO THE NIPIGON. 1 55 
 
 weight of that trout was not five pounds, as I 
 have heretofore insisted, but just five pounds and 
 a half. This, however, is the only case in which 
 I ever suppressed the truth about a fish to the 
 extent of half a pound, though I always aim to 
 be a little under-true. 
 
 We reached Red Rock in good season for the 
 boat, and after paying off our guides and dis- 
 tributing the remnants of our commissary stores, 
 took leave of the river, and finally reached Chicago 
 after an absence of just a month, well satisfied 
 with our outing and firmly resolved to repeat the 
 trip another season. 
 
 Year after year we made our plans only to see 
 them " gang agley ; " but at last, seven years 
 later, the Fates were propitious, and the Sybarite 
 and I, having induced two other members of this 
 Club to accompany us, revisited the river, — 
 going this time by rail to Duluth, and thence by 
 boat to Port Arthur, and thence, by the Canadian 
 Pacific, to Red Rock. But the place was sadly 
 changed. 
 
 Near the old post was a railway station with a 
 telegraph office. Over the rapids just above was 
 a great railway bridge. There were gangs of 
 laborers at work along the track, and shanties 
 near by, and the whole place seemed to suffer 
 from the first rude touch of civilization. 
 
 We secured our guide and boat, and lost no 
 time in starting up the river; and, once away 
 
156 ADDRESSES. 
 
 from the railroad and out of the white man's 
 world, the old charm was upon us, and again we 
 knew the happiness of cloudless, careless days 
 and dreamless nights. 
 
 Suffice it to say of this second trip that while 
 good fellowship and rare weather and fair sport 
 made it most delightful, yet in some respects the 
 conditions were less favorable than before. The 
 railroad had made the river more accessible, and 
 increased the number of visitors, not all of whom 
 were true sportsmen. 
 
 We met one or two parties that seemed to 
 have bought their supplies by the gallon only, 
 and whose conception of a fishing trip was one 
 long cheerful effort to slake the unslakable. 
 
 The river was unusually high, and at pools 
 where before we had found abundant sport the 
 trout would hardly take the fly. On the rapids, 
 however, we succeeded better ; and although the 
 record of our catch on this trip is less in point of 
 numbers, it shows larger trout and higher average 
 weight than on the former visit. I find that we 
 took seven trout of over five pounds, — the largest 
 weighing six and a fourth and six and a half 
 pounds respectively, — and to avert temptation 
 from the other members of the party I will admit 
 that I took the largest one myself, and that on 
 this occasion I have given the full weight. One 
 morning two of the party brought in a string of 
 five trout weighing in the aggregate twenty-three 
 
A TRIP TO THE NIPIGON. 157 
 
 pounds. I give the weight as reported by these 
 gentlemen, and believe it to be correct; for this 
 was a rare occasion — and these gentlemen tell 
 the truth on rare occasions. 
 
 This is a record which probably few Chicago 
 sportsmen have surpassed. Mr. Mason, in his 
 "History of the Original Town and Kinsie's 
 Addition," speaks of the great trout which Mar- 
 quette took in the rapids of the Chicago River ; 
 but there are those who dispute the trout and 
 some who doubt the rapids. 
 
THE BELL(E)S OF YALE. 
 
 Delivered at the Second Annual Banquet of the 
 Chicago Yale Association in December, 1868, in 
 Response to the Toast of " The Bell(e)s of 
 Yale." 
 
 (" Sweet Evening Bells.*') 
 
 THE toast evidently bears some distant refer- 
 ence to lovely women. But it is now getting 
 late, and for brevity's sake I shall consider but a 
 portion of the ladies of New Haven under this title, 
 and for the same reason spare that profane com- 
 mittee-man who buttered my toast with a pun, 
 leaving a possible doubt of my real subject. 
 
 " The Bell(e)s of Yale, — Sweet Evening 
 Bells." We all remember them; and, fortu- 
 nately, most of us remember the same ones. 
 For though time tells upon all things, it tells very 
 slowly upon some; and there are now some fair 
 ones connected with the college, still apparently 
 in the prime of life, still endowed with the same 
 gushing affections and the same guileless belief 
 in man, who have, to say the least, acquired an 
 easement in the admiration of Yale men. It is 
 they who are gracious to Freshmen in memory of 
 
THE BELL(E)S OF YALE. 159 
 
 their fathers before them, and engaged to Juniors 
 from force of habit. 
 
 Mr. President, I would not for one moment 
 — not by one word — assail the fair fame of these 
 budding flowerets, these perpetual roses, that 
 skirt the path of learning to light it with their 
 wayside bloom. I have too profound an admira- 
 tion for their achievements and their chronic 
 loveliness ; too respectful a deference to the sor- 
 rows of their annual widowhood; too careful a 
 regard for that bald head between us, reflecting 
 the chandelier like a mirror, whose raven locks 
 may once have known the gentle dalliance of 
 their fair fingers. Rather, sir, they are entitled 
 to the largest measure of our gratitude to-night; 
 for they give half the charm to the recollections 
 of our college days. There, in memory, are the 
 same old walls, each the palimpsest rewritten 
 with the histories of succeeding generations ; 
 the same old elms above them, still painting their 
 shadow pictures on the walls ; the same old bell 
 that used to call us to the routine duties of the 
 day; and the same old belles who used to sum- 
 mon us to the pastimes of the evening. They 
 lived for a brief season in our affections, sur- 
 vived a corresponding period in belles-lettres, and 
 then, for us, passed into memory. But doubtless, 
 like Webster, they " still live," and, like Tenny- 
 son's New Year Bells, continue to " ring out the 
 old, ring in the new." 
 
l6o ADDRESSES. 
 
 But though, out of my veneration, and because 
 of their distinctive title to the name, I have 
 spoken of these first as the " Belles of Yale," 
 there are others to be remembered. To an eye 
 observant of the developments of nature and the 
 effects of art, each year is fraught with some new 
 belles; and perhaps it may have been your 
 happiness to discover one of these, — possibly 
 immured within the walls of that Elm Street 
 " Nunnery " you all remember, or in other of the 
 boarding-schools. Ah ! my venerable brothers, 
 has it never been your fortune, after having over- 
 come all the obstacles of rules and regulations 
 and established the necessary relationship, while 
 seated within those sacred parlors, close by the 
 object of your adoration, enjoying the delicious 
 throes of ecstatic bliss, to have the presiding genius 
 of the place appear before you in bodily presence 
 and, with all the cold sublimity of an iceberg, — 
 or an oyster, — proceed to disorganize things ? 
 Such things are common. Such things give a 
 zest to the pursuit of learning. Or, possibly, the 
 longings of your nature for feminine perfection 
 were not satisfied by these formative divinities, 
 with all their cultured emotions and accomplished 
 feelings. Perhaps not within the broad confines 
 of fair New Haven, but rather within the classic 
 precincts and among the untrammeled beauties 
 of Fair Haven was the paragon discovered. Such 
 things have happened, and such happenings have 
 
THE BELL(E)S OF YALE. l6l 
 
 given birth to surprising results. I will here 
 mention, for the aggravation of our older friends 
 present, that a horse railway now connects the 
 two cities, which lessens very materially the labor 
 of loving an oyster-maid. 
 
 But, jesting aside, although there are some 
 ludicrous reminiscences which the toast has 
 sprung upon us, there is still occasion for a single 
 word of serious sentiment. It is not possible that 
 all of us have passed from matriculation to Com- 
 mencement, enjoying the full advantages of our 
 position, with our affections and social instincts 
 enlisted and quickened by the sympathy of 
 chosen friends, and our appreciation of the noble 
 and beautiful in aesthetics and humanity alike de- 
 veloped by the process of our course, without 
 some pleasant recollections to-night from a source 
 outside the college walls. It is neither extrava- 
 gance nor vapid sentiment if I imagine that in 
 some of you to-night the call of my toast has 
 awakened recollections that have slumbered for 
 years, — has recalled a fair face almost forgotten 
 till now in the exigencies of our later years ; the 
 echoes of once familiar tones long silent amid the 
 voices that fill our ears ; the vision of a girlish 
 form almost obliterated by the nearer presence of 
 those who make our homes and our social circles 
 now ; and you start to find how little is forgotten. 
 Her sympathy, her friendship, or her love, it may 
 be, struck deeper than you knew, and she stands 
 
162 ADDRESSES. 
 
 forth so clearly in the retrospect to-night, — not as 
 she may be now, the low-voiced matron of 
 some home, but as then, the bright vision of 
 an old-time hope, — that it seems to each as if the 
 response must be made for her alone. And so, 
 in brief, it is given. We 've touched our glasses 
 to-night in honor of the girl whose face you saw 
 in yours ; whose tones you still remember in the 
 words of kindly sympathy and timid praise that 
 were more to you than you ever dreamed ; in 
 whose deep eyes you looked for inspiration once ; 
 from whose pure lips you took the sacrament of 
 youth's religion. 
 
OUR CLIENTS. 
 
 Delivered at the Chicago Bar Association Banquet, 
 on December 28, 1876, in response to the Toast ok 
 "Our Clients." 
 
 IT is certainly fitting that upon an occasion 
 when lawyers assemble to eat, drink, and be 
 merry, there should be some remembrance of the 
 clients. But just why it has fallen to me to speak 
 to this toast I can hardly say, unless possibly 
 your Committee considered that my limited 
 knowledge of the subject would assure the brevity 
 of my remarks. They forgot, perhaps, how hard 
 it is to be short to a client — especially if he 
 belong to us. 
 
 I suppose that ever since God called upon 
 Adam, according to that respectable old story, 
 to plead to the first indictment, by asking him 
 " Hast thou eaten of the tree? " every nation has 
 provided a forum of some sort for the settlement 
 of human controversies and the punishment of 
 crime. But just when the necessity of a vicari- 
 ous appearance at the bar called the first law- 
 yer and the first client into existence is a matter 
 of deep obscurity. Certain it is, however, that 
 the order of clients is an old one, and has brought 
 
1 64 ADDRESSES. 
 
 down with it from antiquity the sympathy of the 
 world; for Luke says, "Woe unto you, also, ye 
 lawyers ! for ye lade men with burdens grievous 
 to be borne." And to-day a man expects the 
 same commiseration of his friends whether he 
 submit himself to a lawyer or a surgeon. 
 
 Clients, however, have little sense of justice. 
 They cannot even find out what it is without the 
 aid of counsel, and half the time fail to recognize 
 it when found and paid for. So we can perhaps 
 afford to give them their conclusions and take a 
 kindly interest in them. They should remember 
 that in the Augustan Age the client was an inferior 
 being dependent upon a patrician patron, — a 
 sort of hereditary property, bound to contribute 
 to his patron's support, to fight for him in war, 
 and to vote for him. Alas ! what a change has 
 been wrought. They may have borne burdens 
 in Luke's day, but they have a great many privi- 
 leges now. 
 
 To the popular mind the most obvious relation 
 between lawyer and client is the pecuniary one ; 
 and of course there is such a relation, and it has 
 its importance. As the clergyman devotes him- 
 self to a life of faith and pew-rents, and the phy- 
 sician weds Science for the love of her and 
 the dowry she brings, so we have robed our- 
 selves as ministers in the Temple of Justice with 
 an eye to the gate-money of the pilgrims. Our 
 clients are right in supposing that we have this 
 
OUR CLIENTS. 165 
 
 interest in them ; and they are at liberty to mag- 
 nify it as much as they please, and as soon as 
 they please to convert it from a mere expectancy 
 into an estate in fee. 
 
 There is an old English theory that the advo- 
 cate serves his client for love of justice and not 
 for pay, — though he takes a sufficient present in 
 advance, which, like attorneys' fees paid to mem- 
 bers of Congress, has some remote connection with 
 the service to be rendered, — and I am sorry to say 
 that some of our clients seem to cling to this old 
 English idea rather more tenaciously than we do. 
 
 It 's a great mistake. A lawyer is not a " casus 
 omissus " in the law of compensation. He gives 
 lore ; he demands hire. If properly encouraged 
 in the customary way, he can do almost anything. 
 He can vindicate the integrity of a thief. He can 
 " go to the country " without leaving the court- 
 room. He can reach the feelings of a common- 
 law judge or wake the dormant faculties of a 
 jury. He fears no obstacle, from a receipt in full 
 to the rule in Shelley's case ; but he is invariably 
 paralyzed by an " estoppel in pais." 
 
 I shall not attempt, Mr. President, to classify 
 our clients. I would as soon undertake to clas- 
 sify the defences under the General Issue, or the 
 Authorities on Negligence. But there is infinite 
 variety. My brother Withrow's pet client, for 
 instance, is a corporation. Now he may be able 
 to preserve his rectitude in dealing with a thing all 
 
1 66 ADDRESSES. 
 
 pocket and no soul ; but I don't believe I 'm honest 
 enough to do just right by a client that I can't 
 have the slightest apprehension of meeting in 
 either department of the next world, after all that 
 is hidden shall be made known. This is one of 
 the reasons why I have refrained from being 
 invited to represent railroads. And the other 
 day in the Federal Court I saw one of our breth- 
 ren engaged in defending fifty barrels of high 
 wines ; but whether he was actuated more by the 
 prevalent desire to reform the Government or by 
 love of his client, I cannot say. And, by the way, 
 the fact that the Government, whenever it would 
 take a little whiskey or tobacco, is compelled to 
 submit the matter to a temperance judge and a 
 jury of the good and true, ought to reconcile us 
 to our lot as mere individuals. 
 
 Then there is the ministerial client, who is con- 
 cerned about treasures in the wrong world, and 
 invariably declines to profane his pulpit ethics by 
 bringing it into business controversies; and the 
 female client, with her many grievances, for which, 
 we tell her with deep emotion, there ought to be 
 some remedy, but is n't ; and the eccentric client. 
 I well remember the first client I ever had was of 
 this class. He gave me a small note to collect. 
 At that time, I believe, I realized fully and liter- 
 ally Lord Brougham's idea of the advocate. In 
 the performance of my duty I knew that one 
 client and none other; and, as Dr. Johnson says 
 
OUR CLIENTS. l6j 
 
 a lawyer should, I did the best I could for him, 
 and gave my attention to that case. I prepared 
 a careful brief to prove that assumpsit would lie, 
 and then brought suit and declared on that note 
 till you could n't find a variance with a microscope. 
 I hoped for success ; but to my anxious mind the 
 action was as purely speculative as the selection 
 of a mother-in-law. Finally, by the ingenious 
 device of taking default for want of a plea and 
 swearing to a masterly computation of interest, I 
 obtained judgment, which the defendant soon 
 paid. Some time afterward I presented a modest 
 bill to my client, and to my great surprise he 
 insisted on doubling it; and, being a large and 
 decided man, he succeeded in accomplishing 
 his purpose. Judging from my uniform experi- 
 ence in my one case, I then supposed this was a 
 common custom with clients, and a thing likely 
 to occur frequently. That was one of the errors 
 of youth. 
 
 Then there is that unfortunate client who is 
 periodically sacrificed by his attorney. I know 
 a man who has been pretty uniformly unsuccess- 
 ful in his cases, and explains how in each case he 
 was " sold out " by his lawyer. I don't blame 
 him so much for being sold out, but I do object 
 to his betraying professional secrets in this way. 
 
 And we all know that wily and pestilent client 
 whose pride of intellect fills him with a noble 
 ambition to outwit his lawyer, and get his law for 
 
1 68 ADDRESSES. 
 
 nothing. When I think of that man, I feel there 
 must be a sub-cellar in Hades. 
 
 And sometimes, Mr. President, there comes to 
 our offices — and often, as I know, to yours, sir, 
 — another client : some poor man, it may be, 
 half starving for the want of the unpaid wages of 
 his hard labor; or, perhaps, some ignorant, 
 helpless widow, who has nothing in the world 
 but a mean little home, where she is struggling in 
 squalid poverty to keep her little ones together; 
 and she must appeal to the law to save her even 
 this. Some one has told her that you are good 
 and wise, and she comes and asks for advice or 
 assistance just as she might come to your door 
 and beg for bread ; and she gets it, and pays you 
 with tears and prayers. Well, you have given to 
 her hours that might have been coined into dol- 
 lars. But you have laid away forever, in that 
 yesterday that even God can't change, something 
 that shall be riches to you hereafter, — a deed 
 done not for Mammon, but because of the God 
 within you. And so long as your heart shall be 
 open to the sense of human kinship, you will 
 sometimes be glad to put aside the consciousness 
 of honors and plenty won for yourself, and turn 
 to the sweet assurance that in that poor charity 
 client's miserable home, hunger and cold pinch 
 not quite so sharply, and sad hearts are a little 
 lighter, because of your hand stretched out in the 
 name of humanity. 
 
THE KING'S ENGLISH. 
 
 Delivered at the Chicago Bar Association Banquet on 
 January io, 188S, in Response to the Toast of "The 
 King's English." 
 
 Mr. Chairman and Gentlemen, — Your 
 Committee having declined to assume any re- 
 sponsibility for what I might do this evening, I 
 have been left to select my own topic ; and I 
 have chosen one which attracted me especially 
 by its apparent elasticity. I propose to devote 
 the few short hours which we may call our own, 
 before this room will be required by the family 
 for breakfast, to the consideration of a certain 
 subject which, if not amusing, may perhaps be 
 found instructive. But before taking up the 
 more abstruse matters which I have in my mind, 
 let me say a few words suggested by the admi- 
 rable response made by Mr. Justice Magruder to 
 the toast of the Supreme Court. I think we 
 have all known for years past that this Court 
 was doing its work under great difficulties, occa- 
 sioned by the division of the State into three 
 grand divisions ; but I doubt if we have ever 
 until to-night realized the full extent of its em- 
 barrassment, and of the burden put upon the 
 
170 ADDRESSES. 
 
 community by the present system. I regret ex- 
 ceedingly to learn from the last speaker that the 
 obstacles to consolidation are such as neither the 
 Court, the Legislature, nor the people at large 
 can remove ; but sooner or later the consolidation 
 must be made, and I hope that some one will 
 take enough interest in the matter to speak to 
 Mr. Yerkes about it at once. I perceive that 
 many of you are judges and the rest all leaders 
 of the Bar; and so in addressing myself to the 
 toast, I shall boldly assume that you have all 
 heard of the common law of England, and of 
 the manner in which we stole it from good King 
 George more than a hundred years ago. At the 
 same time we appropriated also the King's Eng- 
 lish ; by which term I mean more especially that 
 curious mixture of Latin and Saxon which by 
 many generations of men, and with infinite pains, 
 had been fashioned into the accepted phraseology 
 of the law ; and ever since then we lawyers have 
 gone on selling the King's Law in the King's 
 English, — old wine in old bottles, — and some- 
 times, it is said, we have sold more bottle than 
 the wine actually required. I know of nothing in 
 this radical age quite so conservative as the law- 
 yer's adherence to the antiquated verbiage of the 
 law, in spite of the fact that it is largely non- 
 essential. 
 
 In former times, when a man's life, or the title 
 to his property, might depend upon the spelling 
 
THE KING'S ENGLISH. 17 1 
 
 of a Latin word, it was well to be cautious, 
 and hardly possible to be too particular even 
 with much repetition ; but to-day a man may 
 convey his land by a few simple written words, 
 and a lawyer may file a wrapper in court and 
 amend it to suit his case ; and yet we go on com- 
 pelling our clients to grant, bargain, sell, alien, 
 remise, release, convey, and confirm their several 
 pieces and parcels of land, with all the tenements, 
 hereditaments, and appurtenances, rents, issues, 
 and profits thereof, by formal documents with 
 elaborate declarations and complicated covenants, 
 and apparently for no other purpose than to im- 
 press the ordinary mortal with the learning of 
 our craft. So, if a client desires to bring suit 
 upon a contract, we first set up the contract in 
 substance, then substantially, with a change of 
 punctuation, then in hac verba, and conclude 
 with the common counts, just as if we didn't 
 know what the contract was or whether we had 
 any contract at all, but hoped to hit the mark 
 somehow if we put in enough shot. Now, if I 
 had a clerk who insisted on putting a dozen 
 stamps on each letter just because he had the 
 stamps and wanted to be on the safe side, I 
 should urge him to go and die ; and yet we re- 
 gard with indifference the melancholy spectacle 
 of young men trying to acquire the art of putting 
 a dozen words in a two-word idea. 
 
 If the breath wasted by the present generation 
 
172 ADDRESSES. 
 
 of lawyers could be gathered into a single wind, 
 it would polish the earth's surface smooth as the 
 cheek of an apple. I know a single lawyer whose 
 superfluous eloquence would furnish a fair sailing 
 breeze. He has an automatic tongue and an 
 inexhaustible reservoir of something which he 
 calls argument ; and perhaps it is, but when he 
 rises in court and turns himself on, the judge 
 soon begins to think of a certain recent discovery 
 in the vicinity of Pittsburg, and wonders how they 
 manage down there when they want to shut off 
 the illumination. 
 
 In justice to the Bench it must be said that in this 
 fault it does not rival the Bar. Judges will persist 
 in repeating the time-honored formula, declaring 
 that their only desire is to do right and administer 
 the law impartially, but then, after all, there is 
 sometimes a satisfaction in knowing what they are 
 trying to do. The records of our courts, however, 
 and even the rules of practice, lack somewhat the 
 simplicity and brevity which would seem to befit 
 them; as, for example, the familiar rule that if, 
 after nulla bona returned, a testatum be entered 
 upon the roll quod devastavit, a writ of inquiry 
 shall be directed to the sheriff, and if, by inquisi- 
 tion, the devastavit be found and returned, there 
 shall issue a scire facias quare executio non de 
 fropriis bonis, and if upon this the sheriff shall 
 return scire feci, the executor or administrator 
 may appear and traverse the inquisition. 
 
THE KING'S ENGLISH. 173 
 
 But a change is coming. One after another 
 the State legislatures have recently prescribed 
 brief forms for conveyances, and about two-thirds 
 of the States have adopted simpler systems of 
 pleading and procedure. 
 
 Of course some objection is made, and chiefly 
 by the older lawyers. They say that the old 
 forms have been scrutinized and expounded by 
 Bench and Bar for a century or more, and made 
 intelligible. But, after all, this does not prove 
 their superior excellence. 
 
 One might by long practice demonstrate the 
 possibility of writing legibly with a fork, but it 
 would not follow that a fork is the best pen to 
 be had. 
 
 It seems to me that to insist upon clear, concise, 
 and direct statements, arguments, and pleadings, 
 will be to put a premium upon those intellectual 
 qualities and that mental training which alone can 
 fit men for high places in the law. 
 
 In a science which professes to deal with the 
 substance of human acts and relations, useless 
 words should be held to indicate a careless 
 mind. 
 
 Nor does it follow that the present intricate 
 procedure of the courts insures certainty in the 
 result. If you will permit me, I will illustrate this 
 by the story of a certain lawsuit, the first of 
 any magnitude in which I had the honor to 
 be engaged. 
 
174 ADDRESSES. 
 
 I was then reading law in an office in this city. 
 In the same office was another youth who had 
 just been admitted to the Bar. I will not name 
 him, although he has since become eminent in 
 the profession as general solicitor of the great 
 Chewing Gum Trust, and other devouring mo- 
 nopolies, and ought not to be sensitive about his 
 first efforts. A client of the office had a goat. It 
 was not a Cashmere goat, but a plain, unostenta- 
 tious animal, — a sort of cow-goat, that gave milk 
 for its board. And one day this goat was killed 
 by a neighbor, and the owner desired to bring 
 suit for damages. The grown-up lawyers in the 
 office hesitated to undertake the case, as they 
 had never made a specialty of goat cases, and 
 were suspicious of the animal under any circum- 
 stances ; and so my friend and I offered our ser- 
 vices and devoted ourselves to the construction of 
 the declaration according to our somewhat im- 
 mature theories of pleading. As the killing was 
 clearly tortious, we commenced with a count in 
 case ; then, as the goat had gone to that " bourne 
 from which no traveller returns,'' — gone to be set 
 off against a sheep in the final decree of partition, 
 and could not be restored in specie, — we drew a 
 count in trover, setting up that our client had 
 casually lost, and that the defendant had casually 
 found, the said goat, and had converted her, and 
 thereby become liable for the value of the unre- 
 generate animal before conversion. 
 
THE KINGS ENGLISH. 175 
 
 Then, upon the theory of an implied promise 
 to pay for the goat, we added a count in assump- 
 sit, and finally, as a matter of precaution, added 
 the common counts for labor and material, mon- 
 eys expended, etc. The defendant's attorney, a 
 hard, technical man, utterly devoid of sympathy, 
 and without compunction for the goat, demurred 
 to our declaration, and after he had got it trimmed 
 down to suit his taste, filed a set of pleas which 
 seemed to me at the time to be somewhat incon- 
 sistent. He pleaded that the plaintiff never had 
 a goat; that the plaintiff 's goat died a natural 
 death; that the goat committed suicide; that the 
 defendant killed the goat in self-defence ; that the 
 defendant had paid for the goat; then he pleaded 
 set-off, estoppel, the Statute of Frauds, and the 
 general issue. Of course we took leave to reply 
 double to each plea, and so the record grew; 
 and when that case went to the jury, though I 
 never could understand just how it happened, 
 there was n't any goat in it at all, and the defend- 
 ant recovered judgment against our client for an 
 old wheelbarrow that we never had heard of be- 
 fore. This case may serve to show how justice 
 may be mangled by her own machinery. And if 
 we turn to Chancery we shall find about the same 
 state of affairs. 
 
 If I meet a man on the street and he charges 
 me with having robbed him by some breach of 
 trust, I simply call him Ananias, he retorts that 
 
176 ADDRESSES. 
 
 I am a thief, and the issue is made up, and is 
 clear, simple, and unmistakable ; but if he carries 
 the matter into court, his solicitor files a long bill 
 in which he flatters the Court, proclaims his 
 client an orator, and then proceeds in a dozen 
 pages to recite my many wrongful acts ; insinuates 
 that sometimes I pretend one thing and some- 
 times another ; declares that he well hoped I 
 would do the fair thing, and is grievously dis- 
 appointed in me ; protests that the law is power- 
 less to remedy such wrongs as his ; and asks the 
 Court to give him such relief as he may choose 
 to pray for, and such further relief as the Court 
 may consider handy to have in such a case. Then 
 I take my turn, and after saving and reserving 
 unto myself all benefit and advantage of excep- 
 tion to the many errors, uncertainties, and imper- 
 fections in the said bill contained, for answer 
 thereunto, or unto so much and such parts there- 
 of as I am advised by counsel are necessary or 
 material to be answered unto, answering say that 
 in each of complainant's allegations, in turn, he 
 is purposely and maliciously mistaken; and 
 finally, having fully answered the bill and denied 
 " all and all manner of unlawful combination and 
 confederacy, without this, that there is any other 
 matter, cause, or thing in the complainant's said 
 bill of complaint contained, material or necessary 
 to be answered unto, and not herein and hereby 
 well and sufficiently answered, confessed, traversed, 
 
THE KING'S ENGLISH. 177 
 
 and avoided or denied, is true to the knowledge 
 or belief of this defendant," and having offered 
 to prove the truth of my statements, I pray to be 
 dismissed with costs. 
 
 Then comes the complainant again with a gen- 
 eral refutation that no man can calmly under- 
 stand, and no set of men can parse ; and finally 
 the judge sends the whole case to his Master to 
 tell him what he ought to do about it. 
 
 Yet it is true that in spite of its loitering by the 
 way the Court of Chancery seldom fails to reach 
 its goal. 
 
 Let me illustrate its method by a single in- 
 stance. Some years ago a certain widow of this 
 city opened a home for salaried young men. 
 She was plain, but self-supporting, and before 
 long one of the young men offered his hand and 
 heart and was not repulsed ; so for some time he 
 continued to enjoy her society and table free of 
 expense. But when she grew impatient and 
 began to name days in the near future, he basely 
 changed his plans and his boarding-house, and 
 she promptly called upon her solicitor. 
 
 That gentleman filed a bill in Chancery setting 
 up the promise and the breach thereof, the be- 
 trayal of his client's trust and confidence, and the 
 fact that there was no adequate remedy at law, 
 inasmuch as defendant was impecunious, and for- 
 asmuch as the widow had made up her mind to 
 trust the tyrant man just once more, and insisted 
 
1^8 ADDRESSES. 
 
 on doing so, and therefore praying for a decree 
 of specific performance. The chancellor, whom 
 I will not name (neither will I deny that it was 
 Judge Moran) had a tender regard for the sex 
 and a boundless belief in the jurisdiction of his 
 Court, and he promptly decreed that defendant 
 marry the complainant within ten days. 
 
 It was then discovered that the defendant, with 
 singular discretion,' had left the country. Now, 
 our Court of Chancery is not easily balked in the 
 execution of its decrees. It does not depend 
 upon the willingness of the defendant to obey its 
 commands; and in this case the judge simply 
 added to the decree, " and it appearing to the 
 Court that the said defendant had departed from 
 this State, and from the jurisdiction of this Court, 
 it is hereby ordered and decreed that AB, Master 
 in Chancery of this Court, do forthwith marry the 
 complainant, and that he report his proceedings 
 in the premises to this Court at the next term 
 thereof." 
 
 All of which shows clearly how justice may be 
 done without any inconvenience to any one. 
 
POSTERITY. 
 
 Delivered at the Banquet in Honor of Chauncey M. 
 Depew in Chicago on June 6, 1890, in Response to 
 the Toast of "Posterity." 
 
 Mr. Chairman and Gentlemen, — Without 
 being in the confidence of its promoters, I 
 venture to guess that this pleasant affair was 
 designed as an opportunity to convince our 
 distinguished guest that in spite of his recent 
 hallucination we love him still. In the matter 
 of magnanimity Chicago is simply spectacular. 
 A man may dream of fairer cities and more 
 central centres of the world; but if he wake 
 with eyes wide open to the light, she will take 
 him to her heart as if he had never doubted 
 her. 
 
 But if it be the object of this meeting merely 
 to solace the sorrow of our now regenerate friend 
 over the only mistake he ever made, and inci- 
 dentally to betray our own greatness of soul, 
 why should we look beyond this happy hour 
 of reconciliation, and why should I be called 
 upon to talk about posterity? Well, possibly 
 because that which we are doing to-day and 
 
l8o ADDRESSES. 
 
 are about to do must be of interest to those 
 who follow us ; perhaps because we realize that 
 we have talked too long about the debts we 
 owe to dead men, and might as well begin to 
 think of what we owe to the generations yet 
 unborn. 
 
 It's easy to admit indebtedness to those who 
 cannot call for payment. It 's cheap and safe to 
 sound the praises of those who have passed for- 
 ever from the lists of rivalry. Even doctors ad- 
 mit that angel doctors knew a thing or two on 
 earth, and even our sparkling toastmaster will 
 acknowledge that Shakespeare was talented. 
 
 But that which comes to us as heirs of yester- 
 day we hold as trustees for to-morrow, and to- 
 morrow will claim a reckoning. 
 
 Now I don't propose to discuss the whole sub- 
 ject assigned to me by your committee. I should 
 not feel bound to do so without some agreement 
 for a salary and a summer vacation. 
 
 But let me say a few words about the interest 
 of my client, posterity, in the present occasion 
 and the near future of Chicago. Of course I 
 don't mean all human beings of the future tense, 
 for observation tells us that posterity is the nat- 
 ural product of every clime, and much of it we 
 cannot strictly call our own even for the pur- 
 pose of argument. I refer only to the favored 
 millions who shall inherit this Western world. 
 Surely they have some part and interest in the 
 
POSTERITY. 181 
 
 history of to-day. Our acts performed are facts 
 immutable by gods or men, and pass into the 
 pride or shame of generations yet to be. By 
 the strict logic of events there is nothing, how- 
 ever trivial, which goes to make or mar the 
 character of men, or peoples, or states, or cities, 
 but passes on, a help or hindrance to the race 
 forever. 
 
 Now these general observations may possibly 
 remind you of something heard before. They 
 don't impress me as altogether novel, but I 
 have made them for the special application they 
 have to the present day and even to this precise 
 occasion ; for it happens that we speak to-night 
 right into the open ear of posterity. Our daz- 
 zling toastmaster, a gentleman of whom it may 
 be said that his faults are lonely and his virtues 
 overcrowded, is engaged in writing a history of 
 Illinois for future generations, and incidentally in 
 making sure of a good audience. 
 
 In that veracious narrative he will doubtless 
 tell with his accustomed grace and usual accu- 
 racy how, May 5, 1889, at the Grand Pacific 
 Hotel, he presided over this banquet, how it was 
 given in honor of one who began life as a 
 humble railroad president and rose to dizzy 
 heights of statesmanship, and might with prac- 
 tice have become an after-dinner speaker; and 
 the boys of the twentieth century will be content 
 to start out as railroad presidents and work their 
 
1 82 ADDRESSES. 
 
 way up. He will tell how sundry gentlemen, 
 selected for their easy command of all human 
 knowledge, their personal beauty, and good- 
 natured willingness to suffer on festive occasions, 
 discussed subjects of the first magnitude and 
 disposed of national problems with neatness and 
 despatch; and posterity will read the story 
 and rejoice in us ancestors. 
 
 But there is one other matter of which I 
 thought to speak to-night. After what has been 
 said here it seems useless to attempt further con- 
 cealment of the fact that we are soon to hold the 
 World's Fair in or near Chicago. 
 
 The exact spot has not yet been selected, and 
 may not be this week. I trust that the Directors 
 are favored with liberal suggestions on this point, 
 as I understand they intend to suit everybody, if 
 everybody will but kindly and with reasonable 
 diligence express a preference. 
 
 Now, unhappily, my client, posterity, cannot 
 communicate directly with the Board, having 
 been excluded from the mails by order of our 
 good Postmaster-General, on the ground that 
 posterity advertises marriage, which is a lottery, 
 and so it sends a message by me. 
 
 As to the exact site, my clients, if I may 
 assume that posterity will be plural, are not par- 
 ticular. They will not attend the Fair in per- 
 son. So they speak without the bias of personal 
 convenience, and have but this to say : that any 
 
POSTERITY. 183 
 
 site will suit them which shall be known there- 
 after as the field of Chicago's victory ; and if the 
 Directors desire to go down the ages in full 
 plumage, they will do well to give heed to this 
 suggestion. 
 
 You men of to-day have undertaken a mighty 
 work, and not altogether at your own risk. You 
 hold the Fair, and posterity takes what is left, — 
 the consequences of success or failure ; the good 
 or bad name which shall be given to this City of 
 Chicago. It is possible, of course, that — to use a 
 bit of Boston slang — you have severed more 
 than you can masticate; but I don't believe it. 
 I believe with all my heart that Chicago will 
 keep her pledges to the world and yet undo the 
 meanest, even as she has already won the fairest 
 of her critics. The other day I met a young per- 
 son who had been born of wealthy parents some- 
 where between Brooklyn and Jersey City, and had 
 naturally grown up into the effigy of an English- 
 man, — a curious creature with a stuffed heart and 
 a head so plastic that a good breeze would blow 
 it out of shape ; and this gifted being predicted 
 that we should fail because the best people will 
 not come here, at least during the London season ; 
 and, besides, he knew lots of Chicago fellows, and 
 we were rum chaps, but awfully " bad form." 
 Well, it may be so, for I have heard that rum 
 goes to the head ; and, as to " form," we have 
 seen some men who have it to distraction ; but 
 
1 84 ADDRESSES. 
 
 they are not the men for real and great 
 emergencies. 
 
 Let us have done with idle contention about 
 the niceties of form. Unless Chicago shall be 
 swallowed by the earth, or blown away, or burned 
 up, or withered by another criticism from New 
 York, the next generation of men will find her 
 grown to proportions which by comparison will 
 make her present state seem embryonic. Give 
 to posterity the city of material prosperity, of 
 accumulated wealth, of undaunted enterprise and 
 the fixed habit of success, and let her coming 
 citizens accept the challenge of older communi- 
 ties in the fields of culture and the arts. We 
 have no business with such questions yet. What 
 half-grown girl ever yet surpassed the grace and 
 symmetry of womanhood? What city ever yet 
 builded herself so broad and high in half a cen- 
 tury, and in that time acquired the atmosphere of 
 ages? I am sick of this cant about municipal 
 aesthetics. When Chicago expelled the Indian 
 and the wolf from her chosen site, she had within 
 her the promise and potency of all that the world 
 demands of her to-day, and she has known it 
 passing well ; but she was not exempt from the 
 natural laws by which great states and cities 
 grow. Before her stretched the iron age of hard 
 and homely toil, of uncouth manners and all the 
 stubborn harshness of crude energy, — a long 
 hard age, but none too long and none too hard 
 
POSTERITY. 185 
 
 if in the end it brightens into a golden rather 
 than a merely gilded age. A bearded fool may- 
 sneer at the smooth cheek of the boy, but that 
 ought not to bring a blush upon it ; for it is 
 Nature's wise way to build up bone and muscle 
 and give the man his stature before the orna- 
 ments of manhood. I should doubt the lusty 
 vigor of Chicago if she, in her youth, already 
 showed the signs of age. 
 
 And now let me conclude my message with 
 reference to the Fair. Posterity will demand of 
 you nothing less than the glory of success. 
 Chicago has boldly claimed and fairly won the 
 honor of standing for America before the world, 
 and with that honor comes a serious obligation 
 that might well appall so young a city. But she 
 has craved the honor and courted the penalty. 
 Now let her go to work. Let the same indomi- 
 table will that raised her from the swamp and 
 again from the ashes of destruction hold her 
 steadfast now. Let her not count the cost too 
 closely, or buy a failure with $10,000,000, if 
 $20,000,000 will insure success. Let her draw on 
 posterity for the round sum that the future ought 
 to pay from its inheritance, and if the draft shall 
 be the token of success, it will be honored. 
 
YALE IN THE WEST. 
 
 Delivered at the Yale Alumni Banquet in New York 
 on January 20, 1893, in Response to the Toast of 
 "Yale in the West." 
 
 WHEN a Chicago man is permitted to asso- 
 ciate upon terms of equality with the 
 polished representatives of r an older and higher 
 civilization, there is nothing so becomes that man 
 as modest stillness and humility. This is a propo- 
 sition in etiquette which, I believe, is not disputed 
 anywhere east of the Alleghenies ; and if I shall 
 seem to disregard it this evening, it is not because 
 I deny it, or forget the many admonitions of the 
 last year or two, but simply because the gracious 
 invitation of your committee seems to imply a 
 brief suspension of the ordinary rule of inter- 
 course which you have established. 
 
 Let me thank you, gentlemen, for this evidence 
 of your kindly interest, and express the hope that 
 it betokens a growing catholicity of spirit, a 
 deeper concern for all sorts and conditions of 
 men. The fact is that we have been so chastened 
 by New York ever since St. Louis withdrew her 
 counsel that we have become painfully sensitive, 
 
YALE IN THE WEST. 187 
 
 and a little act of kindness touches us in a way 
 you pampered and flattered autocrats can hardly 
 understand. We have done wrong, we admit, 
 but we did not know any better; and we do not 
 want to be utterly condemned and treated as 
 quadrupeds forever. We did n't suppose that 
 you would object to pork -packing at such a dis- 
 tance, where it could not come between the wind 
 and your nobility; you ought to have told us 
 before we became dependent on that industry for 
 our living and the sinews of our best society. 
 We never supposed that you would consider it 
 impertinent in us to grow. You should have 
 told us betimes. And when a little while ago 
 Chicago picked up what seemed a pretty bauble, 
 and hung it about her neck in childish glee, she 
 did n't dream that it was yours. Why did n't you 
 label your millstone? 
 
 Of course, life in Chicago, as compared with 
 your butterfly existence, has its disadvantages. 
 I do not know that I can better illustrate this than 
 by reading an extract from one of your journals, 
 which sometimes evinces a certain critical inter- 
 est in Chicago : — 
 
 " At every grade-crossing death awaits the unfortunate 
 sojourner in Chicago. Submersion in the streets, the 
 deliquescence of the whole town in the quicksands upon 
 which it sags, the blackness of the smoke above and the 
 blackness of the deeper Chicago underneath, water 
 filtered through sewage, and the twitchings of remorse 
 
1 88 ADDRESSES. 
 
 for inability to comprehend David Swing and Dr. Harris 
 on Shakespeare and Dante, make existence very miser- 
 able to thousands of Chicagoans." 
 
 Now let me read another extract from the same 
 journal, descriptive of a day in New York : — 
 
 " The free lunches furnished by the hotels and saloons 
 on New Year's were more elaborate this year than ever 
 before, but the finest spreads furnished without cost to 
 the consumer were given by the proprietors of the res- 
 taurants and saloons near the exchanges on Saturday. 
 One saloon in New Street not only furnished free 
 champagne and an elaborate luncheon, but also pro- 
 vided an orchestra and an imitator of Lottie Collins, to 
 entertain all who came. The proprietor of another 
 saloon gave a set banquet of eight courses and six kinds 
 of wine to his patrons. Free champagne, champagne 
 punch, and champagne cup, as well as the most delicate 
 viands, could be obtained in any of the leading restau- 
 rants and saloons near the stock or produce exchanges." 
 
 You see that with us, while the opportunities 
 of life are limited, the opportunities of death are 
 superabundant. The Chicago man who by 
 chance survives to-day will start out to-morrow 
 with his choice of alternatives. He may either 
 be minced at a grade crossing, or break through 
 the pavement and go gurgling down the depths 
 of deliquescent putridity, or take a glass of sew- 
 age and die of nausea. Compare these with your 
 alternatives of champagne, champagne punch, 
 
YALE IN THE WEST. 189 
 
 and champagne cup, and have compassion upon 
 us. Really, you seem to revel in the favors of 
 Providence; but do not forget that whom the 
 Lord loveth he chasteneth. 
 
 But your chairman has told you that I would 
 speak of Yale in the West, and I am inclined to 
 lead up to that subject by the consideration of a 
 single Yale man, whom some of you may know, 
 as he sometimes appears in the West. We have 
 adopted him as " Our Chauncey," — you know 
 we all have to take our chances, — and we are 
 somewhat surprised that he should be so little 
 known at home. We fancy that if you could 
 draw him out a little, as we do, you 'd get to like 
 him. He comes out West occasionally to look 
 up a President, or give the Fair a boost, or find a 
 good dinner with fresh ears, and we always give 
 him a banquet ; and he sits down with us to our 
 homely fare as if pork and beer were the particu- 
 lar things that make life worth living. He says 
 he likes to dine where he can get his coat off and 
 do his own reaching; that when he goes out to 
 public dinners at home he gets but one dish at a 
 time, and then has to listen to a lot of speeches 
 by amateurs. You see, when he is with us, we 
 divide the labor otherwise, and he does the talk- 
 ing — and does it cheerfully. He tells us on such 
 occasions how much he likes us, and how sorry 
 he is that his duty to a lot of men who hold stock 
 in him keeps him in the East. He says he had 
 
1 90 ADDRESSES. 
 
 rather sit down to a dinner of herbs with us than 
 eat stalled oxen with others ; and that Chicago is 
 the only city in the world where a Christian cannot 
 make anything by dying. He 's very popular 
 with us, and even in the remote fringe of Chicago 
 which is called the far West. Out in the Yellow- 
 stone country they have named a fine geyser 
 after him; and, by the way, it seems to have 
 stimulated the geyser. 
 
 But what of those other Yale men who are 
 part and parcel of the West, and of the influence 
 which, through them, Yale is exerting in that 
 country? It goes without saying that in Chicago, 
 where manliness means more than culture and 
 water, and man cannot live by pedigree alone, 
 Yale is the popular university. Of course, there 
 are those among us who insist that Harvard is 
 the nicer college, — such ladies may be found 
 anywhere, — and some who protest that Prince- 
 ton is the only bulwark that can save us from the 
 loss of hell ; but to the typical Chicago boy, who 
 is apt to be a little careless of his accent and 
 rather sanguine in his theology, the name of Yale 
 is very potent. The fact is, that the Harvard 
 alumni are becoming too intensely aesthetic. Just 
 after the last meeting of the colleges at Spring- 
 field, where Yale played football in the presence 
 of Harvard, the Harvard alumni in Chicago held 
 their annual banquet, and one of them, telling me 
 of it the next day, mentioned the fact that during 
 
YALE IN THE WEST. 
 
 191 
 
 the whole evening not a word was said about 
 football ; so I say they are becoming too purely 
 intellectual in their interests. Now, with the 
 Princeton men it was different. They had a din- 
 ner just after the game of last Thanksgiving Day, 
 and they had a good deal to say of the affair ; 
 that is, their chaplain thanked the Lord that their 
 beloved institution had been spared for another 
 year of usefulness. 
 
 The college-bred men of the West have become 
 an army, and they are doing service in the 
 centers and in the outposts of civilization. They 
 are the regulars in a vaster army. They are 
 furnishing officers to the militia in the great cam- 
 paign against wrong and want and ignorance and 
 crime, and the thousand nameless shapes of ani- 
 malism. They are directing the tendencies of 
 exuberant life and restless energy. They are " a 
 power that makes for righteousness." And they 
 are loyal to the West. You may have observed 
 this ; and I suppose there is nothing that amuses 
 you more than, for instance, a Chicago man's 
 faith in Chicago. It is amusing, of course, — 
 almost as funny as a New Yorker's pride in Lon- 
 don, and really quite as commendable. He's a 
 queer fellow, this Western cousin of yours, but not 
 such a bad sort of fellow, after all. There 's some- 
 thing in his bumptious, belligerent local pride 
 that irritates the nerves of Eastern men ; and 
 when the spirit of brag is upon him, no such light 
 
192 ADDRESSES. 
 
 artillery as the canons of taste will stop him. In 
 that mood he would describe the stock yards to 
 Ward McAllister. And yet — he has his good 
 points. He has, for instance, the habit of self- 
 dependence. He is rarely the victim of congen- 
 ital wealth, and seldom bows down to family 
 names. He holds that the merely rich ought to 
 be humble, and grasps the strong hand, the will- 
 ing and open hand, without thinking of manicures. 
 There 's an oxygen in his atmosphere that quick- 
 ens his senses. He sees things large ; he hears 
 the voices of to-morrow ; he tastes in hope the 
 flavor of success ; he feels in his own veins the 
 pulse of a people, and that is the sort of madness 
 that works miracles in this age. He lacks the 
 graces of life lived in hereditary mansions, but he 
 is yet fresh from the ancestral cabin. He is 
 somewhat uncouth, perhaps ; but he cuts his coat 
 to the measure of the man he means to be, and 
 some day it will fit him. He 's too busy just now 
 to stop and meditate on the niceties of form ; but 
 don't blame him for that, for, after all, the ques- 
 tions of taste are not as yet the most pressing 
 problems of his life. He's doing with all his 
 might the things that must be done, and working 
 out a result to be proud of. You are proud of it 
 to-day. You know you are. You are not per- 
 niciously active in showing it just at present, but 
 that doesn't signify; and very soon the whole 
 world will be invited to glow with the same pride ; 
 
YALE IN THE WEST. 193 
 
 for I take it that the people who visit this coun- 
 try next summer will not repeat the mistake of 
 Columbus and stop at the first island they come 
 to and think they have seen the whole of America, 
 even though that island should be this fairest and 
 proudest of all her possessions. 
 
 13 
 
CHICAGO. 
 
 Delivered at the Banquet in Honor of Daniel H. 
 Burnham, in New York, on March 25, 1893, in 
 Response to the Toast of " Chicago." 
 
 NOTHING could be more gratifying to a 
 Chicago man than this noble tribute to 
 Mr. Burnham; and not merely because he be- 
 longs to Chicago and Chicago is proud of him, 
 but because, also, the work which he has done so 
 well, and which now elicits your admiration, is 
 largely her work. You cannot honor him be- 
 yond his just deserts ; and you will not spoil him 
 by approbation. It may be said of him, as was 
 said of another, that he has earned his fame by 
 the arduous greatness of things done ; and such 
 men are not stupefied by applause. It never 
 did hurt a Daniel to be lionized. And in honor- 
 ing him you testify your appreciation of that lib- 
 eral spirit which has permitted him to enlist in the 
 great work over which he has presided, without 
 regard to local pride or sectional jealousies, the 
 men who best express the constructive and artistic 
 genius of the age. Those marvelous palaces 
 which, untenanted, would justify a convocation of 
 
CHICAGO. 195 
 
 the nations, are monuments not only to the skill 
 of architect and artist, but also to the bold spirit 
 and clear prevision of the men who dared to set 
 the scale of such a work. 
 
 This is indeed a new sensation for Chicago. 
 Hitherto she has received from this quarter full 
 recognition of her claims as a pork, beef, and 
 grain market, and scant courtesy to her aspira- 
 tions for art and culture ; and that now, in this 
 city of accomplishments, her chosen representa- 
 tive should receive the plaudits of the very 
 elect for his services to art, is at least a sweet 
 surprise. 
 
 But this makes easy and agreeable the duty 
 which is assigned to me. I come, in the friendli- 
 est mood, to offer consolation for any disappoint- 
 ments which may have resulted from the location 
 of the Fair. If you will kindly recall the spirited 
 controversy over that question, you will remem- 
 ber that New York signified a willingness. She 
 did not really want the Fair, of course, — for she 
 has said so since, — but she certainly assumed a 
 wistful expression; and when the matter was 
 settled she did not see the hand of Providence in 
 it, and had her doubts about the wisdom of the 
 choice, — doubts which she did not regard as 
 confidential. Chicago, of course, was elated. 
 She was a good deal smaller then, and it pleased 
 her to be treated as a large city ; and she swelled 
 up and said the size of the job was quite im- 
 
196 ADDRESSES. 
 
 material; and now, like the man who won the 
 elephant in the raffle, she rejoices that it is no 
 bigger. 
 
 But I am not going to discuss that question 
 here. A few months longer, and the wisdom or 
 the folly of that selection will be evident to all 
 the world. I mean but to call attention to the 
 silver lining of your cloud. There are certainly 
 some advantages in not having a World's Fair, 
 and probably no one is better qualified to point 
 them out than a Chicago man. Once upo^i a 
 time, up in Fishkill, there was a lady of most 
 expensive tastes, who had two suitors. She mar- 
 ried one, and the other moped. One day the 
 husband met his disappointed rival and said to 
 him, " My dear sir, experience teaches me that 
 you are a happy man." 
 
 Chicago was happy once, but she overlooked 
 the fact. She undertook a World's Fair, and 
 now she knows what happiness was. True happi- 
 ness consists largely in what you don't have. 
 There was once a fox who was pursued by a lot 
 of dogs and horses and others, and as he paused 
 to listen for the hounds upon his track, he re- 
 marked to himself that he would be much happier 
 if he had n't a scent. Let me commend this sage 
 reflection to your care-hunted millionaires, and 
 suggest that if you will come and spend the 
 summer in Chicago you may easily test the 
 theory of that subtle fox. 
 
CHICAGO. 
 
 197 
 
 And that recalls me to my theme. Just think 
 of the expectant hosts that will descend upon 
 that city. We don't mind the New Yorkers 
 so much, for they won't expect anything of 
 us, and the slightest gentility will give them a 
 pleasant surprise. They will look to find our 
 streets paved with good intentions, and ordinary 
 mud will be a relief to them. But what will 
 Boston say, — Boston, who writes to us by way of 
 Albany that she is disappointed in New York? 
 And Philadelphia, who had a little trouble of her 
 own, — what won't she say? And then suppose 
 we have a flock of crowned heads from over 
 the water. You would not mind such a thing at 
 all. You are accustomed to treat princes and 
 potentates with an easy condescension that fas- 
 cinates them ; but we are lowly born and bashful ; 
 and while we sympathize with kings and queens 
 and mean to treat them " square," we lack the 
 tact which enables you to check undue familiarity 
 without a club. I suppose we shall need some, 
 and if so we shall " stock up," for we propose to 
 have whatever is essential to correct hospitality. 
 It 's probably a good thing to have, anyway ; for 
 tact is something which, like the odor of onions, 
 clings to a man even unto the third and fourth 
 generation, and it may help the children some 
 day. 
 
 But aside from such embarrassments, and others 
 which you will readily foresee, there are cer- 
 
I98 ADDRESSES. 
 
 tain responsibilities which you escape. If the 
 Fair should prove to be a great success, it will 
 be the glory of the whole Nation. If it fail, alas 
 for Chicago ! None will dispute her title to the 
 blame. Perhaps Congress, which has already as- 
 sisted her with half a donation less the drawback, 
 would pass a pension bill for the relief of those 
 who had been ruined in the service of their coun- 
 try ; but undoubtedly the President, following the 
 example of himself, would veto that bill, and we 
 should be left to do our own suffering, and he 
 would probably get a third term. However, we 
 must not complain. Such are the penalties of 
 greatness. These dizzy heights are dangerous. 
 It 's a more serious matter to fall from a pedestal 
 than from a ditch. 
 
 But, above all, New York is to be congratu- 
 lated upon a rare opportunity to show the great- 
 ness of her soul. She is our foremost city. Even 
 excluding New Jersey and Long Island, she is still 
 one of the two largest cities in the country. She 
 is the pride of the whole Nation, and, by the way, 
 she is not so stupid as to be wholly unconscious 
 of her own superiority. Even Rome, in all her 
 glory, with sevenfold her opportunity, did not 
 surpass her. She sat upon her seven hills and 
 never hatched a President. 
 
 But, after all, there 's a good deal of America 
 over there on the mainland ; and it 's looking this 
 way. It has been said that New York is insular, 
 
CHICAGO. 199 
 
 self-centered, indifferent to all things off the island. 
 Will it appear so in the coming season of national 
 pride and patriotic effort ? This gathering to- 
 night and the words spoken here go far to reassure 
 us. It is Chicago's misfortune that, no matter 
 how unselfishly she may strive for the success of 
 the Fair, half the world will find her motives 
 wholly mercenary. It is New York's good fortune 
 that her help and sympathy cannot be misinter- 
 preted. Let me commend this thought to you ; 
 and let me add that with a view to your future 
 happiness we cordially invite you to be good to us. 
 It is not merely that we need your practical aid 
 for the Fair, — of course we need that, — but that 
 the men who have sacrificed so much in the cause 
 that is your cause and that of every citizen should 
 have a generous support. I do not speak by their 
 authority. They are not asking for commenda- 
 tion ; they are not waiting for encouragement ; 
 but they would be strange men not to be stimu- 
 lated by your appreciation and grateful for a 
 hand outstretched in kindliness. 
 
 And you have this further consolation, that 
 you have escaped the dust and din of preparation, 
 and will first see the Fair complete. It will be 
 a sudden, full sensation. You will see in all 
 its finished beauty what poets and artists have 
 vaguely dreamed, and in that sight will be a 
 revelation of the real sublimity of man's concep- 
 tions and the possible majesty of his handiwork. 
 
200 ADDRESSES. 
 
 I care not in what spirit you may come. Bring 
 but the common sentiment of men, and that first 
 view will print a picture on your memories that 
 time will not efface. 
 
 And then, too, you will see Chicago, — the most 
 interesting city in the world to one who studies 
 the evolution of cities. Elsewhere the phases of 
 developments have succeeded each other too 
 slowly to be noted except in part through the 
 imperfect medium of history. There the changes 
 have come so rapidly within the field of view that 
 the entire process may be seen. The whole mar- 
 velous transformation, from the trading post to 
 the chosen theatre of a world's pageant, has come 
 within the range of single lives yet far from spent. 
 We look back to find the origin and explanation 
 of Chicago in those forces which fixed the natural 
 highways of a vast and fertile territory. We see 
 her now, a field of prodigious activities, a marvel 
 of brilliant achievement, a turbulent school of 
 sociology. It has fallen to this generation to 
 see the elements of society in violent agitation ; 
 and just now the storm-center seems to be over 
 Chicago. What the result may be let him declare 
 who knows the scope of wisdom and the limita- 
 tions of folly. We only know that in that city men 
 are being molded by the pressure of events; 
 that the incessant urgency of life, adding each 
 day a little to the task of yesterday, a little also 
 
CHICAGO. 201 
 
 to the strength of yesterday, is breeding a race of 
 men fit for responsibilities; and that the same 
 energy which has made her in half a century 
 a great spectacular city, is now surely tending 
 toward the better purpose of her life. 
 
"CATTING." 
 
 Reprinted, by Kind Permission, from "Forest and 
 Stream." 
 
 IN the " Tennessee Fish Notes," by J. D. H., 
 in the " Forest and Stream " of May 1 1, we are 
 told that " Mr. Poole caught a yellow cat out 
 of the river the other day, with ordinary tackle 
 which weighed sixty-one pounds." 
 
 It is to be regretted that the details of this 
 affair are not given. It would be interesting to 
 know how the cat happened to be in the river, — 
 whether by accident or design; and all sports- 
 men will be eager to know something more about 
 the tackle used by Mr. Poole. It is said to have 
 been the " ordinary tackle which weighed sixty- 
 one pounds," and perhaps the Tennesseeans who 
 devote themselves to this particular sport under- 
 stand exactly what is meant ; but in the North, 
 where the cats found in water are generally too 
 stale to entice the angler, the statement cannot 
 fail to excite some speculation. The tackle, 
 weighing only sixty-one pounds, could hardly 
 have been a derrick or a dredging-machine, — 
 although the latter would seem to be well adapted 
 for the purpose, — and it was manifestly some- 
 
"CATTING!' 203 
 
 thing heavier than a rake, a scoop-shovel, or a 
 pair of tongs. 
 
 In view of the well-known predilection of cats 
 for live bait, it may have been a big dog on a 
 string, or a mouse suspended on a log-chain, 
 according as it is customary in such cases for the 
 bait to take the game or for the game to take 
 the bait. It certainly seems probable that in a 
 stream well stocked with cats, a small water- 
 spaniel — say a brown hackle — on a light cast- 
 ing-line and fly-rod would afford excellent sport. 
 Such tackle need not weigh over thirty pounds. 
 Mr. Poole seems to have used a larger dog than 
 was necessary. The smaller-sized would be 
 better for casting, and would make the contest 
 more uncertain, and therefore more sportsman- 
 like. 
 
 Just how we are to induce the cats to take 
 to the water in sufficient numbers to make this 
 sport popular with the fishing fraternity may not 
 be clear ; but it is evident that the surplus kit- 
 tens of our large cities, after being accustomed 
 to city milk, cannot have any serious antipathy 
 to the purer water of the pond and stream. 
 
 Certainly this subject is worthy the careful 
 attention of our fishculturists and sporting clubs. 
 Just as we are beginning to realize and mourn 
 over the rapid extermination of our game fish 
 and animals, a new sport with an inexhaustible 
 supply of material is at hand. 
 
204 FRAGMENTS IN PROSE. 
 
 Take, for example, a single block in New 
 York, occupied by say one hundred house- 
 holders. Each one of these would cheerfully 
 spare a hundred cats from his neighborhood. 
 This makes ten thousand cats to the block avail- 
 able for our purpose; and of course there are 
 plenty of dogs out of business who might thus 
 be furnished with pleasant employment and a 
 reason for existence. 
 
 We hope to hear further from Mr. Poole on 
 this interesting topic. 
 
THE RIGHTS OF THE CITIZEN TO 
 HIS OWN PROPERTY. 
 
 Reprinted, by Kind Permission, from " Scribner's 
 Magazine.' 
 
 IT is quite beyond the purpose of this article to 
 discuss the origin or development of the idea 
 of property, or the history of the various conces- 
 sions which the individual owner has been com- 
 pelled to make to the public necessity. From 
 time to time within the history of the common 
 law, the people have secured for themselves safe- 
 guards against the exactions of the government, 
 until it has become the maxim of modern civili- 
 zation that no citizen shall be deprived of life, 
 liberty, or property, without due process of law ; 
 and from time to time the exigencies of society 
 have compelled the surrender of individual prefer- 
 ences, privileges, and rights to the needs of the 
 government, or the community, until the citizen 
 holds his property subject to the requirements of 
 the State, and may not devote it to any use pre- 
 judicial to the interests of the public, or, within cer- 
 tain limits, tending to the injury of his neighbor. 
 
206 FRAGMENTS IN PROSE. 
 
 Thus, he may own a city lot, in that he may 
 sell it and appropriate the proceeds to his own 
 use, or give it to aid some benevolent object, or 
 devise it to his family or friends, or build upon it 
 some structure in which he may reside or conduct 
 his business without payment of rent; but if he 
 sell or devise, he must conform to laws regulating 
 conveyances or wills, framed for the protection of 
 titles; if he build, he must observe municipal 
 ordinances designed to promote the public safety; 
 if he occupy it, he must regard the health, com- 
 fort, and property rights of his neighbors. He 
 may claim protection by the law in the proper 
 and peaceable enjoyment of his property ; but his 
 property must pay its ratable share of the expense 
 of maintaining order, and providing the conven- 
 iences of urban life, under penalty of confiscation. 
 The State cannot arbitrarily dispossess him and 
 bestow his land upon another without compensa- 
 tion ; but it may seize his property and apply it 
 to the payment of his debts ; it may destroy his 
 house to save others, or appropriate his land to 
 public uses, upon payment of compensation to be 
 determined by its legal machinery. 
 
 At the present day it would be difficult to 
 specify any class of property held by the private 
 citizen, wholly exempt from the claims of the 
 public as represented by the State. On the other 
 hand, it would be painful to contemplate social 
 conditions under which absolute rights of individ- 
 
THE RIGHTS OF THE CITIZEN. 207 
 
 uals could be maintained. The power to tax the 
 citizen and his property is one which is granted 
 of necessity to every State by its citizens, and is 
 based upon theories of public necessity and the 
 equitable distribution of the expenses of govern- 
 ment. So long as it is exercised for a public 
 purpose and with uniformity, according to the 
 value of property, this power is limited only by 
 the discretion of the legislature. The only secu- 
 rity against wanton abuse of it is found in our 
 representative form of government. Those who 
 are chosen for their special fitness to represent 
 the common interests of all ; who must suffer in 
 their own estates the penalty of unwise or extrava- 
 gant taxation ; who are responsible to their con- 
 stituents for every dereliction of their sacred trust, 
 and whose fair fame is, of course, dearer to them 
 than the possible gains of official corruption, — 
 such men will hardly abuse this tremendous power 
 for personal advantage. 
 
 This is the theory of our government, — that 
 legislators and local officers will be inspired by 
 zeal for the public welfare ; and there is here 
 and there an optimist who finds circumstantial 
 evidence of this inspiration in the history of his 
 own time — and party. In theory, as it is stated 
 by eminent authority, " the legislature cannot, in 
 the form of a tax, take the money of the citizens 
 and give it to an individual, the public interest or 
 welfare being in no way connected with the trans- 
 
208 FRAGMENTS IN PROSE. 
 
 action." So, in theory, justices of the peace 
 cannot grant divorces ; but a Western justice punc- 
 tured this theory recently by the remark that he 
 knew better — as he had granted several himself. 
 This power with which the State is so liberally 
 endowed is by it delegated, in part, to the muni- 
 cipal and quasi-municipal corporations created 
 for the administration of local government; 
 though in some States the power of such corpo- 
 rations to raise money by general taxation is 
 limited to a certain percentage of the assessed 
 value of property within the district of taxation ; 
 but special assessments of property for local pub- 
 lic improvements, which may be considered as a 
 form of taxation, may be carried to such extent 
 as may be required by public necessity or the 
 local spirit of enterprise ; provided only that the 
 proposed improvement shall be of a public char- 
 acter, and that the cost thereof shall be levied on 
 lands according to the estimated benefit to be 
 conferred, or, in some States, in cases of street 
 improvement, according to frontage on the street. 
 The legal machinery by means of which this 
 power of taxation is exercised, is too complex for 
 description here, even with reference to a single 
 State ; but it may be said in general terms that it 
 involves the assessment of values or special bene- 
 fits, as the case may be, by an officer or board 
 elected for that purpose; and that there is, in 
 most States and cities, great scope for injustice 
 
THE RIGHTS OF THE CITIZEN. 209 
 
 by means of excessive and unequal assessments, 
 as well as by extravagant and unnecessary ex- 
 penditure of public money. 
 
 When the extent of this power is considered, in 
 connection with the opportunities for its abuse 
 by incompetent or corrupt officers, it will be 
 seen that the citizen's right to his " own " prop- 
 erty falls somewhat short of absolute dominion. 
 
 In addition to this power of taxation, there is 
 inherent in every sovereignty the power to take, 
 damage, or destroy the property of the citizen, in 
 the interest of the public, by the exercise of that 
 superior right of property known as the Eminent 
 Domain. 
 
 This power may be invoked for various objects, 
 as for the construction of railroads, canals, public 
 streets, roads and bridges, parks, water-works, 
 ferries, drains, schoolhouses, cemeteries, mills, — 
 in some States, — and other works of public neces- 
 sity or convenience, upon condition that com- 
 pensation shall be awarded and paid to the 
 owner. In certain States it is provided by statute 
 that the proper compensation shall be determined 
 by a jury, and paid by the State or corporation 
 seeking condemnation of property, before taking 
 possession ; but this rule is not uniform, or essen- 
 tial to the protection of the citizen. In several 
 States the assessment or award is made by com- 
 missioners appointed for the purpose, and pay- 
 ment of compensation is not a condition precedent 
 
 14 
 
2IO FRAGMENTS IN PROSE. 
 
 to taking possession, the owner being remitted to 
 his legal action to enforce payment. 
 
 Thus the citizen must consider his property at 
 all times as for sale to the city, if needed for 
 streets or public grounds or buildings ; to a rail- 
 road company if required for its purposes, or to 
 such other of the several public corporations, 
 permitted by the State to exercise the right of 
 eminent domain, as may find it necessary or 
 convenient ; and at a price to be fixed by a jury 
 or commission, which is limited to the actual 
 market value of the property in cash; and in 
 case of the interruption or destruction of his busi- 
 ness, he may be awarded compensation for in- 
 juries resulting directly from the condemnation, 
 but not for others perhaps quite as real and 
 serious, but not clearly demonstrable under the 
 rules of evidence. 
 
 Or, if his property be applied to any use, or 
 occupied in any manner, declared by the legis- 
 lature or the courts to be prejudicial to the pub- 
 lic welfare, the " nuisance " so created may be 
 abated by summary means and without compen- 
 sation, even though it involve the destruction of 
 buildings or render the property practically 
 worthless by prohibition of the only use to which 
 it is adapted. 
 
 This " police power " of the State, as it is 
 termed, is one of vast scope, and its limitations 
 may not be readily defined. Indeed, certain 
 
THE RIGHTS OF THE CITIZEN. 211 
 
 recent opinions, emanating from courts of high 
 authority, seem to warrant the definition of this 
 power as the general authority of the legislature 
 to supervise and control all business transacted 
 within the State to such extent as it may deem 
 expedient for the public good. 
 
 In the year 1876 this question was presented 
 to the Supreme Court of the United States, in 
 various forms, by a series of appeals from State 
 courts in what are known as the " Granger 
 Cases ; " and we have but to examine the opin- 
 ions filed in those cases, and certain later adjudi- 
 cations by the same court, if we would escape 
 the popular fallacy that a man really owns his 
 own property. 
 
 In 1 87 1 the Legislature of Illinois defined and 
 classified public warehouses, and fixed a maxi- 
 mum rate to be charged for storage of grain. 
 Certain private citizens of Chicago, who had 
 erected extensive elevator buildings and were 
 engaged as co-partners in carrying on the busi- 
 ness of receiving and storing grain therein at the 
 time of the enactment in question, failed to take 
 out a license under the new law, or to comply 
 with its provisions relating to rates of storage, 
 and were prosecuted. This case necessarily pre- 
 sented certain questions of great importance 
 touching the right of the individual to the use 
 and control of his own property. It was not the 
 case of a corporation, to which had been given 
 
212 FRAGMENTS IN PROSE. 
 
 extraordinary powers to equip it for public ser- 
 vice, and which was therefore subject to control 
 by the public ; nor did it present any of those 
 questions relating to the public health, safety, or 
 morals, which would clearly justify the interven- 
 tion of the police power of the State. The 
 Supreme Court of Illinois, by a bare majority, 
 held the law to be valid, although it was argued 
 with great force on behalf of the warehousemen 
 that it was unconstitutional, in that it operated to 
 deprive them of their property without due pro- 
 cess of law. The Supreme Court of the United 
 States affirmed this decision by a majority opin- 
 ion, in which it is expressly stated that the case 
 has received long and careful consideration " on 
 account of the vast importance of the questions 
 involved." In that case the Court concluded 
 from the facts of record that the proprietors of 
 elevators in Chicago enjoyed a " virtual monop- 
 oly " of a business which was of general interest 
 and public character, and stated the law as appli- 
 cable to the case in these words : " Property does 
 become clothed with a public interest when used 
 in a manner to make it of public consequence and 
 affect the community at large. When, therefore, 
 one devotes his property to a use in which the 
 public has an interest, he, in effect, grants to the 
 public an interest in that use, and must submit to 
 ' be controlled by the public for the common good, 
 to the extent of the interest he has thus created." 
 
THE RIGHTS OF THE CITIZEN. 213 
 
 This language has been severely criticised by- 
 lawyers and judges, and by none more severely 
 than by the dissenting members of the Supreme 
 Court. Mr. Justice Field says, in the same case : 
 " If this be sound law, if there be no protection 
 either in the principles upon which our republi- 
 can government is founded, or in the prohibitions 
 of the Constitution against such invasion of pri- 
 vate rights, all property and all business in the 
 State are held at the mercy of a majority of its 
 legislature. The public has no greater interest 
 in the use of buildings for the storage of grain 
 than it has in the use of buildings for the resi- 
 dences of families, nor, indeed, anything like so 
 great an interest; and according to the doctrine 
 announced, the legislature may fix the rent of all 
 tenements used for residences, without reference 
 to the cost of their erection. If the owner does 
 not like the rates prescribed, he may cease renting 
 his houses." 
 
 In a series of railroad cases decided after the 
 warehouse case, and in which the Court held that 
 the legislatures of the several States might regu- 
 late the rates to be charged by railroads for trans- 
 portation of passengers and freight, and that, 
 although the roads were entitled to reasonable 
 compensation, the legislature alone could deter- 
 mine what was " reasonable," Mr. Justice Field, 
 in a dissenting opinion on behalf of himself and 
 Mr. Justice Strong, remarks with reference to the 
 
214 FRAGMENTS IN PROSE. 
 
 warehouse case, which the Court had followed as 
 a precedent, that " that decision, in its wide sweep, 
 practically destroys all the guaranties of the Con- 
 stitution and of the common law invoked by 
 counsel for the protection of the rights of the 
 railroad companies ; " and again : " that decision 
 will justify the legislature in fixing the price* of 
 all articles and the compensation for all services. 
 It sanctions intermeddling with all business and 
 pursuits and property in the community, leaving 
 the use and enjoyment of property and the com- 
 pensation for its use to the discretion of the legis- 
 lature." It may be argued, of course, that the 
 declaration of the Court in the warehouse case, 
 so far as it applies to other classes of property 
 than that directly in controversy in that case, may 
 be regarded as a mere dictum ; but as it is a care- 
 fully considered statement of the general prin- 
 ciple on which the decision is based, and as the 
 same Court has not seen fit to modify it materially 
 in any of the later cases in which it has been dis- 
 cussed and criticised, it must be taken as the de- 
 liberate exposition, by our highest tribunal, of the 
 relative rights of the public and the individual 
 citizen to that which the latter is accustomed to 
 call his own property. 
 
 If it be the law of the land that the citizen who 
 "devotes his property to a use in which the 
 public has an interest," or enjoys a " virtual 
 monopoly," must submit to be controlled by the 
 
THE RIGHTS OF THE CITIZEN. 215 
 
 public to the extent of its interest therein, and if 
 even his right to a reasonable compensation for 
 the use of his property or his services in connec- 
 tion therewith mean nothing more than the right 
 to receive whatever the legislature shall arbi- 
 trarily declare to be a reasonable compensation, 
 it is but a step — if at all — further to the doctrine 
 that the public may also determine for itself, and 
 finally, when property is " used in a manner to 
 make it of public consequence and affect the 
 community at large," or, in other words, when 
 it, the public, " has an interest " therein ; and 
 then it may be said, in general terms, that a 
 man's right to his property depends upon the 
 will of the legislative majority. When we con- 
 sider the infinite subdivision of labor, the inter- 
 dependence of trades, professions, and all the 
 business classes, and the complicated and deli- 
 cately adjusted mechanism of that great modern 
 engine called Commerce, it is really not easy to 
 say what legitimate, well managed, and success- 
 ful business may not be considered to be of 
 " public consequence," or to " affect the com- 
 munity at large," and therefore to be subject to 
 public control. 
 
 It is possible, of course, that the Supreme 
 Court has gone no further than would be con- 
 sistent with a proper theory of society, based 
 upon modern conditions. On that question I 
 shall venture no opinion. But, tested by the 
 
2l6 FRAGMENTS IN PROSE. 
 
 principles and precedents by which it professes 
 to be guided, its language in this case seems to 
 be singularly inaccurate, ■ — a fault not often to be 
 found in its opinions, — and must inevitably tend 
 to encourage usurpation by legislative majorities. 
 There is, indeed, some indication of late that the 
 Court perceives this, and is disposed to qualify 
 its former doctrine. In a recent case, decided in 
 March, 1890, a statute of Minnesota, enacted in 
 1887, creating a railroad and warehouse commis- 
 sion, and providing that all charges for transpor- 
 tation " shall be equal and reasonable," and 
 empowering the commission to compel a carrier 
 to adopt such rates as the commission " shall de- 
 clare to be equal and reasonable," without provid- 
 ing for any hearing before the commission, was 
 held to be unconstitutional, as depriving carriers 
 of their property without due process of law. The 
 question of the reasonableness of the rate charged 
 is said by the Court to be " eminently a ques- 
 tion for judicial investigation, requiring due pro- 
 cess of law for its determination." This is clearly 
 a modification of the doctrine laid down in the 
 warehouse case and the " Granger Cases " already 
 referred to, — so clearly that Mr. Justice Bradley, 
 in a dissenting opinion, declares that it " prac- 
 tically overrules " those cases, in which, he says, 
 the governing principle was that the regulation 
 of such rates, and the determination of their 
 reasonableness, is strictly a legislative preroga- 
 
THE RIGHTS OF THE CITIZEN. 217 
 
 tive, and not a judicial one. In this case, more- 
 over, the Court appears to modify somewhat its 
 former views as to what constitutes the " prop- 
 erty" of the citizen and the "deprivation" which 
 is prohibited by the Constitution, except upon 
 compensation and by due process of law ; but it 
 has not greatly changed its doctrine concerning 
 the " police power " of the State. It leaves wide 
 open still the question as to what business may 
 be subject to public control because of general 
 interest to the community. Indeed, in a still 
 later case, now popularly known as the " Orig- 
 inal Package Case," three of the Associate Jus- 
 tices unite in declaring that " the police power 
 includes all measures for the protection of the 
 life, the health, the property, and the welfare 
 of the inhabitants, and for the promotion of good 
 order and the public morals." 
 
 Giving full force to the very comprehensive 
 terms used by the Supreme Court, it would be 
 safe to say that the property of the citizen is 
 subject to such control by the public as the 
 latter may be interested to exercise, but hazard- 
 ous to attempt to define the classes of private 
 property which are or may be clothed with such 
 a public interest as to justify interference by the 
 government. But for the fact that the Supreme 
 Court must be presumed to understand the lan- 
 guage of the country, in both its technical and 
 ordinary acceptations, one might guess with some 
 
2l8 FRAGMENTS IN PROSE. 
 
 reason that it had been careless in stating the 
 doctrine in question, and that its opinion in the 
 •warehouse case ought not to be taken as a pre- 
 cedent, except in cases where property is devoted 
 to a public service. Within this limitation the 
 doctrine has since been extended to " grist " 
 mills and waterworks. In the " Civil Rights 
 Cases " it was said by Mr. Justice Harlan to be 
 applicable to places of public amusement, since 
 they are used in a manner to make them of pub- 
 lic consequence and affect the community at 
 large; but I am not advised of any case in 
 which it has been applied to clergymen, under- 
 takers, or certain others whose services affect the 
 community. 
 
 As to corporate property, courts and legisla- 
 tures have left small room for discussion. If any 
 stockholder needs to be further admonished of 
 the fact that corporations are but creatures of the 
 people, let him await the next judicial utterance 
 on the subject. It will not be long delayed ; for 
 just now the excellent doctrine of corporate sub- 
 jection is in the prime of life, and asserts itself 
 with frequency and vigor. The president of a 
 well-known railway company recently published 
 an article advocating the purchase and operation 
 of railroads by the government. It was regarded 
 by many as a grim jest ; but inasmuch as the gov- 
 ernment has already assumed so largely the con- 
 trol of their operation, the proposition of the 
 
THE RIGHTS OF THE CITIZEN. 
 
 219 
 
 stockholders, that the public should assume also 
 the risk and expense of operating them, is not so 
 obvious a joke as to pass without challenge. It 
 should be observed, however, that the inconsis- 
 tencies and excesses of the public, in its treat- 
 ment of this subject, do not necessarily condemn 
 the whole procedure. The old doctrine of the 
 vested rights and sacred charters of corporations 
 was founded on error, and came to be recognized 
 as dangerous to interests far more important than 
 the gains of stockholders. It was time for gov- 
 ernment to realize that it had no right to abdicate 
 its trust, — that it had no power to grant irrevo- 
 cable privileges, as against the general welfare of 
 the people. At present this newly awakened 
 solicitude for the public weal seems likely to 
 carry us beyond the bounds of temperate action ; 
 but it cannot be that we, as a people, shall long 
 ignore the folly of discouraging enterprise and 
 intimidating capital by petty restrictions and 
 unjust discriminations. We shall soon cease to 
 regard corporations as the natural foes of good 
 government. We may even come to regard the 
 prevailing hostility to these agents of government 
 as an oblique menace to the State itself, — espe- 
 cially when expressed by combinations formed 
 and maintained at the expense of the public. 
 
 At the time when these words are written, the 
 operations of a great Western railway are sus- 
 pended because of a " strike ; " and this con- 
 
220 FRAGMENTS IN PROSE. 
 
 certed action of an army of employees is based 
 upon the refusal of the railway company to dis- 
 miss an efficient but unpopular superintendent. 
 The public, which has been so eager to curb the 
 rights of stockholders, who draw dividends from 
 the business conducted on their capital, is in- 
 different to the action of these employees who 
 draw wages for their labor in the same business. 
 If the corporation is held to strict performance 
 of its duty as a public servant, should not its 
 agents, who live upon its business, be held to 
 some account, — at least for combinations made 
 to obstruct a public service as a means to satisfy 
 the personal grudge of a few individuals ? 
 
 There remains but one other right of the citi- 
 zen, concerning his own property, to be consid- 
 ered. He is permitted to give it away, under 
 certain restrictions. During his lifetime he may 
 bestow it gratis, except that he may not thereby 
 impair the rights of his wife or creditors, or 
 divest it of the burden imposed by the public ; 
 and, dying, he may dispose of it by will, subject 
 to similar charges, and, in some States, certain 
 statutory rights of children, and succession taxes. 
 Observing these proper conditions, the citizen 
 may give away his property ad libitum ; and it 
 has long been a matter of surprise and regret — 
 at least, to the impecunious philosopher — that so 
 few avail themselves of this privilege during their 
 lifetime. The records of our courts teem with 
 
THE RIGHTS OF THE CITIZEN. 221 
 
 cases in which the intentions of testators have 
 been defeated by legal technicalities invoked by- 
 greedy heirs ; and it would seem that this con- 
 stantly recurring spectacle ought to deter men 
 from confiding their property exclusively to 
 courts for distribution. > 
 
 One may excuse the merchant who accumu- 
 lates to gratify a commercial ambition, and uses 
 his millions as fuel for legitimate enterprise, or 
 the man of any class who seeks to assure the 
 comfort of those dependent upon him ; but for 
 those men — not a few — who by inheritance or 
 otherwise have acquired wealth far in excess of 
 their proper need or the need of those to whom 
 they owe the debts of kinship, and cling to it for 
 the mere satisfaction of seeing it increase and 
 feeling the sense of ownership, there ought to be 
 no forgiveness on earth. At such men is aimed 
 the last suggestion of this paper, — that the right, 
 with reference to his own property, in which the 
 citizen is least restrained, is the right to give it 
 away; and that this right is of all the most 
 precious to him who sees the just relation of 
 property to human happiness. 
 
MR. JONES'S EXPERIMENT. 
 
 Reprinted, by Kind Permission, from " The Century 
 Magazine." 
 
 MR. F. MANDEVILLE JONES was slowly 
 recovering from a fever, which had re- 
 lented only after the doctors had given him up 
 and his friends had begun to enumerate his good 
 qualities; and in the seclusion of the sick-room 
 he reflected long and seriously upon the life 
 which he had been about to submit, as a closed 
 record, for judgment. 
 
 With keen introspection he sought out the 
 flaws in his character, analyzing the motives of 
 action, testing principles, and criticising the 
 method and result of all his life. He was a 
 bachelor of mature age and comfortable fortune, 
 a fairly successful lawyer, of good social posi- 
 tion, correct habits, and genial nature, — in short, 
 a gentleman of parts and a most acceptable 
 member of society. 
 
 Thus, at least, he was rated by the world, and 
 thus, in his casual moments of self-examination, 
 he had been accustomed to regard himself. But 
 now, solemnized by the recent near approach of 
 death, and with new clearness of vision, he stud- 
 ied the being that he had been and knew him- 
 
MR. JONES'S EXPERIMENT. 223 
 
 self for what he really was, — a dishonest man ; 
 that is, conventional and insincere. 
 
 He reviewed with impartial scrutiny his social 
 relations, and was forced to admit that he had 
 not spoken and lived the truth, — the real truth 
 of his conscience. 
 
 Day by day he had politely lied, courteously 
 repressed his real feeling, and amiably concurred 
 in that which he knew to be false, until deception 
 had become the unconscious habit of his life; 
 and brooding over this unwelcome fact, he so 
 magnified his fault that it assumed the propor- 
 tions of a deadly sin, from which he must find 
 deliverance at any cost. He resolved that with 
 the return of strength he would enter upon a new 
 life. He would in all things and at all hazards be 
 simply true to himself and to the obvious prin- 
 ciples of rectitude. 
 
 He now clearly perceived that the bane of 
 modern society is the affectation of feeling or 
 sentiment, and that the so-called amenities of life 
 are often hardly more than facile deceptions, 
 serving merely to mitigate the harshness of hon- 
 est facts ; and of course that the sin of society is 
 but the prevalent fault of its individual members, 
 and that all social reforms must originate with the 
 individual. 
 
 He realized that the duty to which he had 
 resolved to devote himself would be exacting and 
 difficult; but to shirk it for that reason would be 
 
224 FRAGMENTS IN PROSE. 
 
 unworthy of him regenerate. And again and 
 again, during the long period of his convales- 
 cence, he renewed his resolution and rehearsed 
 the glories of his certain victory over the sins of 
 duplicity, until he became an enthusiast, or per- 
 haps a monomaniac, on the subject of truth as a 
 rule of conduct, and longed for the field of 
 action. Yet with all his zeal he intended to be 
 reasonable. He would not gratuitously affront 
 society by noisy declamation, or assert himself 
 inopportunely or unchallenged. He would not 
 give way to unworthy impulses simply because 
 they were real ; but, on the other hand, he would 
 not blink the truth according to his conscience, 
 however unwelcome, whenever he should be 
 properly put in evidence. 
 
 After careful consideration of his physical con- 
 dition and rate of improvement he was confident 
 that by the opening of the new year, then close 
 at hand, he would have quite regained his 
 strength and be ready to resume his place in the 
 social world ; and he would then resolutely take 
 up the task of honest living. 
 
 The eventful day arrived, and Mr. Jones sallied 
 forth with two great resolutions ; whereof the 
 major has been sufficiently indicated, and the 
 minor may be guessed when it is known that 
 he bent his steps toward the home of Miss Stella 
 Van Riper. 
 
 Mr. Jones belonged to that class of bachelors 
 
MR. JONES'S EXPERIMENT. 225 
 
 known as eligible. For some years he had pre- 
 served his autonomy without apparent reason; 
 and recent meditations upon the duty of man 
 and the exceptional qualities of Miss Van Riper 
 having shown him the error of his way, he had 
 resolved to lose no time in gaining the right 
 path, — which he fondly hoped to do by means 
 of a frank declaration to this lady of the exact 
 state of his feelings, in which, of course, he 
 would state the whole truth and nothing but 
 the truth. 
 
 He was received on this occasion with that 
 cordiality which Miss Van Riper always mani- 
 fested toward gentlemen whose calls were fre- 
 quent enough to indicate a probable purpose, 
 and with perhaps a certain superadded warmth 
 due to her considerable interest in him and con- 
 sequent joy over his restoration to health and 
 her society. 
 
 After an hour of preliminary conversation, 
 commencing with a recital by him of the inter- 
 esting features of his recent illness, continued by 
 the enumeration of similar cases, and ending 
 with a polite but not extravagant avowal of the 
 pleasure experienced in the renewal of their 
 friendly intercourse, Mr. Jones found himself at 
 the brink of opportunity and poised for the 
 fateful plunge. 
 
 Miss Van Riper, with a woman's quick percep- 
 tion of great moments, assumed the attitude of 
 
 is 
 
226 FRAGMENTS IN PROSE. 
 
 genuine and yet not painful surprise, with the 
 right hand somewhat conspicuous and easily 
 tangible. She had done this before, but never 
 when she felt so sure of her emergency. Mr. 
 Jones, having mentally renewed his vow of abso- 
 lute sincerity in all things, thus proceeded : — 
 
 " Miss Van Riper, I desire to speak with you 
 upon a personal subject of great, and I trust 
 mutual, interest; and at the outset let me assure 
 you that I shall permit no enthusiasm or fervor or 
 habit of hyperbole to carry me beyond the limits 
 of exact truth and perfect sincerity, for I am 
 resolved that simple honesty shall be henceforth 
 my constant rule of action. 
 
 "You cannot have failed to observe that marked 
 preference which I have shown, of latter years, 
 for your society. Indeed, I am conscious that at 
 sundry times I have given you more or less ex- 
 plicit assurances of my special regard. Doubt- 
 less some of these may have been accentuated by 
 the too common tendency to extravagant lauda- 
 tion of your sex, and should be qualified by that 
 consideration; but, however that may be, the 
 main fact of personal esteem remains." 
 
 Here he hesitated, and Miss Van Riper, being 
 restrained by no vow, remarked that she must say 
 that he had always been very polite, but she had 
 never dreamed that — but what he had been just 
 the same to the other girls. 
 
 " No," he continued, " there was a difference. 
 
MR. JONES'S EXPERIMENT. 22"J 
 
 While it is true that with the careless duplicity 
 which is the unfortunate habit of my sex, and 
 once was mine, I have given similar assurances to 
 other ladies, they were not so fully warranted by 
 the fact; and I now regret and ought perhaps to 
 recall them ; whereas with you I am constrained 
 to reinforce such former suggestions. Miss Van 
 Riper, I have critically examined the state of my 
 emotions ; and though I have at times doubted, 
 and have somewhat distrusted my own judgment, 
 I am satisfied upon a full, and I trust impartial, 
 review of all the evidence, that I love you. I do 
 not say that I adore you — or worship your foot- 
 prints — or even that I love you as I had never 
 thought to love or as no woman was ever loved 
 before ; for I am convinced that such protestations 
 are in most cases, and would probably be in the 
 present, extreme and misleading. 
 
 " I could, indeed, find it easy to make them now, 
 in the excitement of my emotions, and to think 
 them true ; but reason teaches me, and candor 
 compels me to admit, that such passionate avow- 
 als should not be wholly credited. 
 
 " I find that you are essential to my happiness. 
 In this I may of course be mistaken ; and you will 
 therefore regard this as but the expression of a 
 personal opinion upon the subject. As for my- 
 self, I give you no assurance of exceptional merits. 
 There is always danger that an individual may be 
 disqualified, either by undue vanity or by exces- 
 
228 FRAGMENTS IN PROSE. 
 
 sive modesty, to pass upon his own value. I can 
 only say that the disposition of persons in polite 
 society is to conceal or repress the baser elements 
 of character, and to exhibit to the best advantage 
 the more attractive qualities, — a fact which should 
 not be overlooked in forming our estimates of each 
 other; and with this caution I must leave you to 
 your own conclusions, as I am left to mine." 
 
 By this time Miss Van Riper's face was a study. 
 She was old enough, and sufficiently self-pos- 
 sessed, to appreciate the reasonableness of Mr. 
 Jones's propositions, and felt, too, that his case 
 ought not to be prejudiced by his extraordinary 
 candor ; but she had long looked forward to this 
 moment, and had well-matured ideas as to the 
 proprieties of the occasion, — none of which had 
 been regarded. Her right hand was still free. 
 She clasped it with the left, — feeling that some- 
 thing was due from somebody, — and wondered 
 whether at this point she ought to treat his re- 
 marks as complete. She hesitated; and Mr. 
 Jones, perceiving that he had omitted some- 
 thing, asked her to be his wife; and she, with 
 downcast eyes and averted conscience, told him 
 she was so surprised — that it was all so new and 
 strange — that she really had hardly thought of 
 marriage — and was he sure that he would always 
 love her just the same? He replied that he had 
 asked himself that question, and that while he 
 could not honestly assure her that it was abso- 
 
MR. JONES'S EXPERIMENT. 229 
 
 lutely certain, he felt the greatest confidence in 
 the stability of his affection. 
 
 It had been well for Miss Van Riper had she 
 been content with this guarded statement of the 
 case ; but how could maiden heart surrender to 
 a preamble and set of resolutions? She would 
 make some effort to secure her rights; and she 
 began by being so surprised that he should think 
 her beautiful. This surprise, having really no in- 
 ducement in fact, was most unfortunate. He had 
 chosen her with his eyes open and without the 
 aid of any optical illusion; partly because of a 
 certain maturity which corresponded well with 
 his own, but which in most ladies postdates the 
 heyday of youth and beauty; and, in spite of his 
 vow, he was terribly tried by this uncalled-for 
 remark, and especially because he knew that in 
 the days of his duplicity he had indulged in 
 sundry conventional compliments which might 
 have misled her even to the extent indicated by 
 her expression of surprise. 
 
 But he was fairly challenged, and the great 
 principle of his new life was at stake. He was 
 tempted for a moment to compromise by some 
 general observation that mere beauty had never 
 been the chief inspiration of his love; but in her 
 eyes he read a larger expectation, and he must 
 answer it. So he told her, kindly but firmly, that 
 he had not intended to imply, nor could he hon- 
 estly permit her to assume, that her beauty, though 
 
230 FRAGMENTS IN PROSE. 
 
 entirely satisfactory to him, was of that trans- 
 cendant quality to compel especial and exclu- 
 sive homage; and trusted that he would not be 
 misunderstood if in his desire to be entirely frank 
 he took occasion to correct any false impression 
 which he might inadvertently have given her on 
 this subject. Then she supposed, with tears in 
 her voice, that since he was not very sure of his 
 love, and considered her such a fright, he must 
 have some other reason for wishing to marry her, 
 and she was sure she could n't imagine what it 
 was unless he wanted her fortune — and she 
 wished she had n't a dollar, so she did. Now, 
 nothing could have been more absurd and un- 
 just than this suggestion, and Mr. Jones hastened 
 to assure her that her suspicion — if, indeed, she 
 really entertained it — was wholly unfounded; 
 that her appearance was really most attractive 
 to him, and that as to her fortune, while he could 
 hot honestly assert that he had not considered it, 
 yet he sincerely believed that it had not influenced 
 him to any appreciable extent. But it was too 
 late. She, who had long held herself in readiness 
 to reward the love of some honest man, in the 
 face of this fine opportunity found her purpose 
 paralyzed by the blow to her vanity, and she did 
 what most women would have done under the 
 same exasperation. Mr. Jones withdrew, sadly 
 conscious that he had deserved a better fate, and 
 went to his club. 
 
MS. JONES'S EXPERIMENT. 23 1 
 
 It was the first time he had been there since 
 his recovery, and the cheery greetings of several 
 friends almost persuaded him for the moment 
 that he had something left to live for. Here he 
 found a note, which had been awaiting him some 
 days, inviting him to dine that evening with his 
 old friend, Mrs. Axminster, and meet a few other 
 old friends. This gave him a pang, for he re- 
 membered that Miss Van Riper had spoken of 
 this dinner as an engagement for the evening, 
 and he was in no mood to appear again so soon 
 in the presence of one who had so cruelly mis- 
 judged him. True, he felt a momentary impulse 
 to go and be feverishly brilliant, and stun her 
 with reckless gayety; but he knew well enough 
 that this suggestion had come to him out of some 
 novel or drama and not from his real feeling, 
 and this was sufficient. He had fought a good 
 fight that day for downright honesty, and, though 
 sorely wounded, he was still loyal to the cause ; 
 and so he at once despatched to Mrs. Axminster, 
 not a mere formal regret, but a note in which — 
 as may hereafter appear — he set forth fully and 
 frankly the reasons which impelled him to de- 
 cline her kind invitation. 
 
 He had hardly done this when he was ap- 
 proached by a friend who requested him to sign 
 the application of a certain Mr. Plush for mem- 
 bership in the Club. He hesitated. He had 
 frequently given his indorsement to such appli- 
 
232 FRAGMENTS IN PROSE. 
 
 cations, and sometimes in behalf of applicants 
 less worthy; but that was before his sense of 
 responsibility had been awakened. He felt that 
 he could not conscientiously vouch for this man 
 as possessed of all the qualifications which, in his 
 judgment, such a Club ought to require ; and so 
 he declined to sign, and, disdaining subterfuge, 
 candidly explained that he could not cordially 
 recommend the applicant as a gentleman worthy 
 of admission ; and of course his words were 
 promptly, and more than fully, reported by the 
 indignant friend to the aspersed candidate, who 
 with singular obtuseness failed to appreciate Mr. 
 Jones's conscientious scruples, and incontinently 
 charged him with malice, hypocrisy, and sundry 
 other sins of the Litany. 
 
 If now we recur to the note which had been 
 sent to Mrs. Axminster, and follow it into her 
 hands, we shall find that estimable lady in a state 
 of perturbation hardly to be expected, and which 
 will require a little explanation. 
 
 Mrs. Axminster was a widow of mature age, 
 whose buoyant spirits and persistent charms had 
 long excited the envy of her juniors. During 
 the few years of her widowhood she had been 
 conspicuous as an example of the sanitary effect 
 of well-modulated grief. She bloomed in weeds 
 as if they nurtured her ; and she had kept her 
 heart as fresh as her complexion, — a result due 
 in part, it may be, to the fact that the late 
 
MR. JONES 'S EXPERIMENT. 233 
 
 Mr. Axminster had never drawn largely upon 
 her store of sentiment. 
 
 Her return to fashionable society was an event 
 of great importance, especially as it was freely 
 said that she was about to bestow her hand upon 
 one of her many admirers, generally conceded 
 to be the identical Mr. Plush, already mentioned 
 as a candidate for other honors. 
 
 This rumor had reached her ears, and was not 
 altogether unwelcome. She was content that 
 society should regard her as a flower still fresh 
 and fair enough to pluck, and did not seriously 
 resent the insinuation that she might — possibly 
 — be overcome by the pleadings of some favored 
 suitor; but she regarded the more specific de- 
 tails of the rumor with apprehension ; since, in 
 fact, Mr. Plush, although attentive enough to 
 give color to the report, had not as yet culmi- 
 nated, and since, moreover, she had definitely 
 decided against him in advance, and felt the 
 rank injustice to other admirers of an unfounded 
 rumor of this discouraging nature. 
 
 And this is not surprising. No woman ex- 
 posed to the danger of a second husband desires 
 to have the risk unfairly diminished ; and in the 
 present instance Mrs. Axminster was especially 
 annoyed, because she had fully determined, upon 
 a careful review of her possible suitors, that in 
 case Mr. Jones should reciprocate, as seemed 
 extremely probable, the marked preference of 
 
234 FRAGMENTS IN PROSE. 
 
 which she was conscious, and attempt to over- 
 persuade her, he should have a fair chance ; and 
 while she had, as a matter of extra precaution, 
 denied to certain other possible candidates the 
 rumor of her engagement, she had been pre- 
 vented by Mr. Jones's long illness from reassur- 
 ing him on this point, and felt keenly the wrong 
 which had been done him. Indeed, she had at 
 once diagnosed his disease as a bitter disappoint- 
 ment with typhoid complications, and regretted 
 that the usages of her world forbade her to offer 
 the only specific ; and upon his recovery she had 
 planned a little dinner and invited him with the 
 secret purpose to convince him, by all delicate 
 and seemly methods, of the prematurity of his 
 despair. 
 
 It was therefore with more than ordinary anxi- 
 ety that she awaited his long-delayed response, 
 and with peculiar interest that she read his note, 
 which ran thus : — 
 
 Mv dear Mrs. Axminster, — I have but just 
 found your kind invitation at the Club, and hasten to 
 reply, regretting the embarrassment which the delay 
 may have caused you. With thanks for the kindness 
 which prompted it, I must yet decline the invitation. 
 In saying this, I feel that it is due to our long friendship, 
 the memory of which is very dear to me, that I reject 
 the artifice too frequently employed on such occasions, 
 and tell you frankly that to be of your party this even- 
 ing would necessitate my meeting conventionally a lady 
 
MR. JONES'S EXPERIMENT. 235 
 
 — whom I need not name — with whom my present 
 relations are such as would render the occasion ex- 
 tremely painful to me and possibly unpleasant to her. 
 I trust I do not seem by this to imply any censure ; I 
 simply mean that I lack the fortitude to turn so soon 
 from the grave of my slain hope and face the slayer — 
 alas ! still so dear to me — and the gay world in which 
 she moves. 
 
 Very sincerely yours, 
 
 F. Mandeville Jones. 
 
 Now when Mrs. Axminster read this note, she 
 was ignorant of Mr. Jones's morning call on Miss 
 Van Riper and the disaster thereof, and of the 
 fact that Mr. Jones had been apprised of the 
 invitation to that lady; and of course, reading 
 his words in the dim light of what she knew 
 and the full glare of what she believed about 
 his state of feeling, she could hardly doubt that 
 the lady to whom he referred, whom he would 
 necessarily meet in coming to her house, and 
 who had slain his hope, was — herself. The fact 
 is, that Mr. Jones had for some years been on 
 the best of terms with Mrs. Axminster. Before 
 her husband's death her house had been to him 
 one of those quasi homes in which bachelors 
 rejoice ; and even at that time he had felt it his 
 privilege to respond sympathetically to that yearn- 
 ing for sentiment which possessed her, and to 
 some extent influenced her manner and prompted 
 the expression of her feelings; and during the 
 
236 FRAGMENTS IN PROSE. 
 
 period of her seclusion as a widow he had been 
 one of the few excepted from the ban, and had 
 not felt it his duty to repress any natural sym- 
 pathy or belittle the esteem in which he held 
 her. Indeed, the temptation to a man of the 
 world — as he then was — to give full measure of 
 devotion to any charming woman who seems to 
 like it, is clear and distinct; and Mr. Jones was 
 not at that stage of his development superior 
 to it; so it is not surprising that she should have 
 regarded his homage as more especial and exclu- 
 sive than it really was. This is one of the mis- 
 takes commonly made by women who know 
 themselves, but believe men to be honest 
 
 But there was no time for speculation, even if 
 there were room for it. 
 
 It was already afternoon, and Mr. Jones must 
 be saved from his error, and that right speedily ; 
 and with a palpitating heart and a blush that 
 startled her into thoughts of long ago, she hastily 
 penned these lines : — 
 
 My dear Mr. Jones, — It is all a mistake. There is 
 no reason why you should not meet the lady in question 
 as usual ; and she will be very much disappointed if you 
 do not come. Irene. 
 
 This note, which was quickly despatched to 
 Mr. Jones, transformed that melancholy person as 
 if by magic ; for of course he read between the 
 lines that Miss Van Riper had already repented 
 
MR. JONES'S EXPERIMENT. 237 
 
 of her hasty action and had made a confidante of 
 her dear friend, Mrs. Axminster, who therefore 
 fully understood his trouble and sought to relieve 
 it. " Dear, good Mrs. Axminster," — thought he, 
 — " what a kindly old soul she is ; I '11 adopt her 
 as a mother." 
 
 The filial quality of his new affection was due 
 to the fact that she was a few years his senior, — a 
 fact which on the other hand had given to her 
 feeling no maternal character, so much does 
 the point of view control the deference paid to 
 age. 
 
 At the appointed hour Mr. Jones appeared, 
 radiant with joy and eager for the penitential 
 word or glance which surely awaited him ; but he 
 was disappointed to find Miss Van Riper sur- 
 rounded by other guests and apparently indiffer- 
 ent to his presence. He had no difficulty, 
 however, in getting a moment apart with his 
 beaming hostess; and pressing her hands with 
 unmistakable fervor, he called her an angel, and 
 vowed that he owed her the happiness of his life, 
 and she called him a foolish boy to be so easily 
 discouraged, and the next moment whispered to 
 her dearest friend that she had at last consented 
 to become Mrs. Jones, but wished nothing said 
 about it at present; and within five minutes her 
 dearest friend had enjoined the same secrecy 
 upon the other ladies present, including the 
 astounded Miss Van Riper; and before dinner 
 
238 FRAGMENTS IN PROSE. 
 
 was announced, the gentlemen had severally been 
 pledged to the same silence. 
 
 Now it was most natural from the hostess's 
 point of view that Mr. Jones escorted her to the 
 table and occupied the place of honor; and most 
 extraordinary from his point of view that Miss 
 Van Riper was placed at the other end of the table 
 and next to Mr. Plush, concerning whom his 
 candid opinion has been already recorded; and 
 quite clear from their respective points of view 
 that Mr. Jones was the most shameless villain of 
 the age, — poor Mr. Jones, whose only aim it was 
 to be perfectly honest and sincere ! In fact, so 
 profound was this conviction that when Mr. 
 Plush inquired of Miss Van Riper whether in her 
 opinion their hostess had secured full value for 
 herself in the transaction referred to, she replied 
 with some intensity that she regarded Mr. Jones 
 as a minus nonentity, — an estimate which Mr. 
 Plush facetiously characterized as excessively 
 high. 
 
 The hour wore on right merrily, with laugh 
 and jest and tinkling table-talk, and now and 
 then a sly allusion, closely veiled, to a certain 
 recent social event; and yet Mr. Jones was not 
 supremely happy. He was watching Miss Van 
 Riper, alert to catch the tender glance that 
 should assure him of her yielding heart, and she 
 seemed never to see him. True, it might have 
 been her maiden modesty — the half-shame of 
 
MR. JONES'S EXPERIMENT. 239 
 
 her conscious passion — that hid her tell-tale 
 eyes from him ; it might have been some proper 
 feminine instinct that prompted her to hang upon 
 the words of that inferior Mr. Plush as if he 
 were an oracle ; but still he wished it otherwise, 
 and grew uneasy. It was not enough that his 
 hostess, in all the effulgence of her joy, beamed 
 full-orbed upon him; he never felt her beams, 
 but gazed disconsolate upon the cold and distant 
 star. At last, perplexed and desperate, he 
 turned to Mrs. Axminster and said in a low and 
 anxious tone, "It cannot be — you must have 
 deceived yourself — I see no sign of feeling ; " 
 and she replied, " Hush, dear ! be patient — I 
 must play the hostess now." Strangely enough, 
 there was something in her words, or perhaps 
 in the fond glance that accompanied them, which 
 disturbed him ; and when, a moment later, she 
 quietly directed his attention to the couple oppo- 
 site, and remarked in a confidential undertone 
 that she believed that Stella Van Riper was en- 
 gaged, or as good as engaged, to Mr. Plush, he 
 looked at her in amazement, which slowly settled 
 into a sort of stupor in which his dizzy mind was 
 vaguely conscious of some horrible mistake. He 
 tried to think what it was; but the lady on his 
 right insisted on telling him about some people 
 of his name she had met last summer, and had to 
 be satisfied upon the question of relationship. 
 He endeavored to recall the exact words of his 
 
240 FRAGMENTS IN PROSE. 
 
 note to Mrs. Axminster and her reply ; and the 
 gentleman just beyond that lady insisted that he 
 favor the table with the story of his interview 
 with the colored evangelist. 
 
 He strove to remember whether in either note 
 the name of the lady in question had been men- 
 tioned, and had just reached a sickening conclu- 
 sion in the negative and begun to shiver with 
 apprehension of the possible truth, when the com- 
 pany arose and the ladies withdrew. 
 
 Then with the cigars came the opportunity for 
 a moment's calm reflection ; and closing his ears 
 to the lively sallies of his companions, he swiftly 
 reviewed the incidents of the day and reached the 
 conclusion that by the unrestrained exercise of 
 simple honesty he had forever estranged the 
 woman he loved, and become ridiculously in- 
 volved with the woman he had intended to adopt 
 as a mother. 
 
 But was he really engaged? He now saw 
 clearly enough that his foolishly frank note to 
 Mrs. Axminster had been construed by that ex- 
 cellent person as a note of despair, evoked by the 
 rumor of her engagement to another; and he 
 could hardly doubt that her reply was intended 
 as a gracious acceptance of his implied devotion ; 
 but such a correspondence — so indefinite, and 
 founded upon a misunderstanding — could never 
 be held to constitute a contract. The more he 
 reflected upon it, the more comfortably certain 
 
MR. JONES'S EXPERIMENT. 241 
 
 he felt that in spite of appearances he was really 
 not engaged, until he happened to recall the 
 general atmosphere of the meeting with his hos- 
 tess, and how he had held her hands and called 
 her an angel and told her how happy she had 
 made him ; and then he felt clammy and yearned 
 for the fool-killer. Clearly, there was nothing 
 left him but to linger this evening, and by another 
 frank avowal, and a more explicit statement cf 
 his experience with Miss Van Riper, explain his 
 conduct and set matters aright. It would be dis- 
 agreeable. He was not a man of lively imagina- 
 tion, but he could easily anticipate that Still, is 
 must be done, and at once. 
 
 Having reached this conclusion, he felt some- 
 what relieved, and was about to resume his func- 
 tions as a social being, when the Rev. Mr. Sur- 
 plice, his old friend and pastor, drew him aside, 
 and, claiming the privilege of his office and his 
 long friendship for both parties, warmly congrat- 
 ulated him upon his engagement, — adding that 
 he had already laken the same liberty with dear 
 Mrs. Axminster and had been deeply touched by 
 her frank expression of the happiness she felt in 
 at last yielding to the impulse of her affections. 
 Mr. Jones gasped; but even here his presence of 
 mind did not utterly fail him. 
 
 He inquired of his reverend torturer when he 
 had first heard of the affair and whether he 
 thought the rumor had reached others ; and was 
 
 16 
 
242 FRAGMENTS IN PROSE. 
 
 informed that Mrs. Axminster had told Mrs. 
 Surplice just before dinner, — in confidence, — 
 that Mrs. Surplice had told him, and that he, 
 from his general knowledge of that good lady's 
 facility in imparting information of such mat- 
 ters, had no doubt that all the ladies in the 
 party now possessed the secret ; and several of the 
 gentlemen had already indicated to him some 
 knowledge of the situation; and indeed he, the 
 speaker, saw no reason to conceal an event so 
 worthy to be known and so certain to delight 
 the many dear friends of both parties. Mr. Jones 
 did not respond as an irrepressibly happy man 
 would have done ; and he felt distinctly less in- 
 clined to linger this evening and have that under- 
 standing with Mrs. Axminster. 
 
 What could he do? The gentlemen were now 
 quitting the table to rejoin the ladies. He could 
 hardly remain alone in the dining-room ; and in 
 the drawing-room, alas ! what might befall ? He 
 thought of suicide, flight, insanity, and the various 
 other avenues of escape from trouble, and had 
 about concluded that the only happy issue out 
 of all his tribulation would be to awake and find 
 that he had mistaken a harmless prancing night- 
 mare for a real hungry lion looking for Jones, 
 when he found himself in the other room and 
 face to face with Miss Van Riper. She flushed 
 angrily and would have avoided him ; but in an 
 agony of despair he pressed forward and said to 
 
MR. JONES'S EXPERIMENT. 243 
 
 her, "May I not speak with you? I did not 
 know — a terrible mistake." He paused. Her 
 mild blue eye, in which until this day he had 
 never seen an unpropitious gleam, now pierced 
 him cruelly, and slowly, steadily, distinctly, she 
 replied, " Mr. Jones, the catalogue of your mis- 
 takes is becoming tiresome; " and before he 
 could rally she had passed away on the arm of 
 the objectionable Mr. Plush, who was smiling a 
 horrid smile. From that moment his case grew 
 steadily worse. The coldness of Miss Van Riper 
 froze his marrow, and the frank partiality of his 
 hostess quite unnerved him. He dared not go, 
 and he feared to stay. The moment when he 
 should be left alone with the charmed widow 
 and driven to explanation, appeared to him more 
 dreadful than the day of judgment, and seemed 
 to approach more rapidly than to the doomed 
 criminal comes the hour of execution ; and when, 
 one by one, the guests had taken leave and the 
 fair object of his apprehension turned to him and 
 sweetly said, " At last, Mandeville, we are alone," 
 he thought, "How happy are the dead — -wher- 
 ever they are ! " and then silently renewing his 
 vow of utter frankness at all hazards, he spoke : 
 
 " Mrs. Axminster, I desire, or rather I am 
 compelled, to be perfectly candid with you — " 
 
 Here we must draw the veil, not meaning 
 thereby to imply that there was anything in the 
 interview which might not properly be told, 
 
244 FRAGMENTS IN PROSE. 
 
 but simply because Mr. Jones, who has kindly 
 and frankly given us the true story of his expe- 
 rience up to this point, in the hope that it would 
 be repeated as a warning to others, here drew 
 the veil himself; and no amount of persuasion, 
 nor even the threat of supplying the omission out 
 of the writer's imagination, could induce him to 
 furnish the details. He says that even as there 
 are moments in a man's experience to which the 
 world is not entitled, so there are centuries which 
 a man has the right to forget if possible, — and 
 that this was one of them. Of course his compu- 
 tation of time must be regarded as inaccurate; 
 but the situation, so far as revealed, indicates 
 that he may have had at least a most uncomfort- 
 able quarter of an hour, and that there might be 
 sufficient reason why even so candid a man might 
 desire to withhold the particulars from a cold and 
 merely curious world ; and so we must be con- 
 tent to take up the narrative where he did, a 
 little later in the evening, when, haggard and 
 wan-eyed, he paused a moment on the pavement 
 just outside the door and assured himself in a 
 feeble voice that he had only tried to be honest, 
 and then mechanically took his way toward the 
 Club. At the same moment Mrs. Axminster, 
 tearfully furious, was engaged in writing notes to 
 her confidantes of the evening, informing them 
 that for reasons quite sufficient, based as they 
 were upon conduct unbecoming a gentleman, she 
 
MR. JONES'S EXPERIMENT. 245 
 
 had forever terminated the particular relations of 
 which they had been advised, and hoped that no 
 reference would be made to them, — which of 
 course secured a wide publicity for her unfortu- 
 nate affair with the recreant Jones, and a general 
 denunciation of that unhappy monster. 
 
 Arrived at the Club, he took his seat in the cafe, 
 and told a waiter to bring him a pony of brandy. 
 Having tossed this off, he ordered a four-in-hand 
 of the same. He was now looking wild, and a 
 sort of hilarity, forced and unnatural, began to 
 manifest itself. 
 
 About half a bottle later, the gentleman who 
 had asked him to sign the application of Mr. 
 Plush came in, and at sight of Mr. Jones walked 
 up to him with some emphasis and said that he 
 had been thinking over Mr. Jones's action in that 
 matter, and had resolved to demand an explana- 
 tion of the aspersions cast upon his friend, adding 
 that Mr. Plush also would avail himself of the first 
 convenient opportunity to exact specifications of 
 the serious charge which had been made against 
 him. By this time the guiding star of his new 
 life glimmered but faintly through a vinous mist; 
 and rising with difficulty, he grasped the hand of 
 the astonished speaker, and in thick but fervent 
 tones declared that — Plush was all right — a per- 
 fect gentleman — and that he longed to encounter 
 the man who doubted it — and insisted on ring- 
 ing for something to Plush's health ; but very soon 
 
246 FRAGMENTS IN PROSE. 
 
 his mollified companion detected in poor Jones's 
 tangled cerebration signs which alarmed him, 
 and calling for a carriage took him home and 
 summoned his physician. The brain fever which 
 followed quite puzzled the doctor, who was loath 
 to believe that a dinner-party, and a glass or two 
 after it, could have produced such dire results ; 
 but Jones, on regaining his senses, evinced no 
 surprise. He quietly resumed his place as a 
 lawyer and citizen, and after a time reappeared in 
 society, where he was kindly received ; for it was 
 generally conceded, after the unscientific manner 
 of the parlor world, that the brain fever must have 
 been coming on for a day or two before it was 
 recognized, and fully accounted for the exceptions 
 to his usually conventional behavior. Indeed, 
 Miss Van Riper herself was led to take this view 
 of it ; and when, some months later, he recurred 
 to the subject still near to his heart, in terms 
 which are usually considered passionate and 
 wildly extravagant, and in which the protestations 
 of his unique and eternal love vied with rhapso- 
 dies over her peerless beauty, she was convinced 
 that his reason was fully restored, and said that 
 she did n't see how they could be married before 
 autumn. 
 
 And so Mr. Jones survived his experiment of a 
 day ; and whether much the worse for it can 
 hardly be known, though it is said that he 
 shows at times a disposition to be cynical which 
 
MR. JONES'S EXPERIMENT. 247 
 
 rather surprises his friends. For instance, he 
 sometimes says that honesty may be the best 
 policy in a very primitive community of men 
 only, or in heaven ; but that in the best circles 
 of intermediate society the man who gives way 
 to his sincerity, as a regular habit, is marked 
 for destruction.