flight to do him wrong.' thorne. One must To sum up briefly what would, as it seems to me, be the text to be unfolded in his biography, he was a man of excellent common sense, with a genius so uncommon that he seemed like an exotic transplanted from some angelic nursery. His character was so blameless, so beautiful, that it was rather a standard to judge others by than to find a place for on the scale of comparison. Looking at life with the profoundest sense of its infinite significance, he was yet a cheerful optimist, almost too hopeful, peeping into every cradle to see if it did not hold a babe with the halo of a new Messiah about it. He enriched the treasure-house of literature, but, what was far more, he enlarged I need not tell you what the country now is, and what the habits and the garments of its people now are, or that the expenditure, per capita, of the general government has increased fifteen ... the boundaries of thought for the few that followed him, and the many who never knew, and do not know today, what hand it was which took down their prison walls. He was a preacher who taught that the religion of humanity included both those of Palestine, nor those alone, and taught it with such consecrated lips that the narrowest bigot was ashamed to pray for him as from a footstool nearer tothethrone. "Hitch your wagon to a star :" this was his version of the divine lesson taught by that holy George Herbert whose words he loved. Give him whatever place belongs to him in the liter ature of our language, of the world, but remember this: the end and aim of What delightful hosts are they— This late hour, yet glad enough So, with face lit with delight Yet to press their hands and say, night." "A Parting Guest," by James Whitcomb Riley his being was to make truth lovely and manhood valorous, and to bring our daily life nearer and nearer to the eternal, immortal, invisible. -Oliver Wendell Holmes. fold. But I have witnessed and taken a deep interest in every step of the marvelous development and progress which have characterized this century beyond all the centuries which have gone before. Measured by the achievements of the years I have seen, I am one of the oldest men who have ever lived; but I do not feel old, and I propose to give you the recipe by which I have preserved my youth. I have always given a friendly welcome to new ideas, and I have endeavored not to feel too old to learn, and thus, though I stand here with the snows of so many winters upon my head, my faith in human nature, my belief in the progress of man to a better social condition, and especially my trust in Out of me unworthy and unknown The vibrations of deathless music: "With malice toward none, with chairty for all." Out of me the forgiveness of millions towards millions, may be ready to welcome laborers to a new field of usefulness, and to clear the road for their progress. This I have tried to do, as well in the perfecting and execution of their ideas as in making such provision as my means have permitted for the proper education of the young mechanics and citizens of my native city, in order to fit them for the reception of new ideas, social, mechanical and scientific-hoping thus to economize and expand the intel lectual as well as the physical forces, and provide a larger fund for distribution among the various classes which necessarily make up the total of society And the beneficent face of a nation Beloved in life of Abraham Lincoln, the ability of men to establish and maintain self-government, are as fresh and as young as when I began to travel the path of life s "Anne Rutledge," by Edgar Lee Masters While I have always recognized that the object of business is to make money in an honorable manner, I have endeavored to remember that the object of life is to do good. Hence I have been ready to engage in all new enterprises, and, without incurring debt, to risk in their promotion the means which I had acquired, provided they seemed to me calculated to advance the general good. This will account for my early attempt to perfect the steam engine, for my attempt to construct the first American locomotive, for my connection with the telegraph in a course of efforts to unite our country with the European world, and for my recent efforts to solve the problem of economical steam navigation on the canals It happens to but few men to change the current of human progress, as it did to Watt, to Fulton, to Stephenson, and to Morse; but most men If our lives shall be such that we shall receive the glad welcome of "Well done, good and faithful servant," we shall then know that we have not lived in vain.-Peter Cooper (From an Address, 1874.) De 10 HE less there is said of physical structure and laws, and the more there is thought and said about moral and spiritual law, the higher the standard of mortals will be, and the farther they will be removed from imbecility of mind and body. We should master fear, instead of cultivating it. It was the ignorance of our forefathers, in the departments of knowledge broadcast in the earth, which made them more hardy than our trained physiologists, more honest than our sleek politicians. Mary Baker Eddy. 80 80 There's a divinity that shapes our ends, Rough-hew them how we will. -Shakespeare. 80 90 Where law ends tyranny begins. -William Pitt. Samuel Johnson Meets His Future Biographer D R. THOMAS DAVIES the actor, who then kept a bookseller's shop in Russell street, Covent Garden, told me that Johnson was very much his friend, and came frequently to his house, where he more than once invited me to meet him; but by some unlucky accident or other he was prevented from coming to us. Mr. Thomas Davies was a man of good understanding and talents, with the advantage of a liberal education. Though somewhat pompous, he was an entertaining companion; and his literary performances have no inconsiderable share of merit. He was a friendly and very hospitable man. Both he and his wife (who has been celebrated for her beauty), though upon the stage for many years, maintained a uniform decency of character; and Johnson esteemed them, and lived in as easy an intimacy with them as with any family which he used to visit. Mr. Davies recollected several of Johnson's remarkable sayings, and was one of the best of the many imitators of his voice and manner, while relating them. He increased my impatience more and more to see the extraordinary man whose works I highly valued, and whose conversation was reported to be so peculiarly excellent. At last, on Monday the 16th of May, when I was sitting in Mr. Davies' back parlor, after having drunk tea with him and Mrs. Davies, Johnson unexpectedly came in the shop; and Mr. Davies having perceived him through the glass door in the room in which we were sitting, advancing toward us, he announced his awful approach to me somewhat in the manner of an actor in the part of Horatio, when he addresses Hamlet on the appearance of his father's ghost-"Look, my lord, it comes." I found that I had a perfect idea of Johnson's figure from the portrait of him painted by Sir Joshua Reynolds soon after he had published his Dictionary, in the attitude of sitting in his easy chair in deep meditation; which was the first picture his friend did for him, which Sir Joshua very kindly presented to me, and from which an engraving has been made for this work. Mr. Davies mentioned my name, and respectfully introduced me to him. I was much agitated, and recollecting his prejudice against the Scotch, of which I had heard much, I said to Davies, “Don't tell where I came from," "From Scotland," cried Davies, roguishly "Mr. Johnson," (said I) "I do indeed come from Scotland, but I can not help it." I am willing to flatter myself that I meant this as light pleasantry to soothe and conciliate him, and not as an humiliating abasement at the expense of my country. But however that might be, this speech was somewhat unlucky; for with that quickness of wit for which he was so remarkable, he seized the expression, 66 66 come from Scotland," which I used in the sense of being of that country: and as if I had said that I had come away from it, or left it, retorted, "That, sir, I find, is what a very great many of your countrymen can not help." This stroke stunned me a good deal; and when he had sat down, I felt myself not a little embarrassed, and apprehensive of what might come next. He then addressed himself to Davies: What do you think of Garrick? He has refused me an order for the play of Miss Williams, because he knows the house will be full, and that an order would be worth three shillings." Eager to take any opening to get into conversation with him, I ventured to say, "Oh, sir, I can not think Mr. Garrick would grudge such a trifle to you." "Sir,” (said he, with a stern look) “I have known David Garrick longer than you have done; and I know no right you have to talk to me on the subject." Perhaps I deserved this check; for it was rather presumptuous in me, an entire stranger, to express any doubt of the justice of his animadversion upon his old acquaintance and pupil. I now felt myself much mortified, and began to think that the hope which I had long indulged of obtaining his acquaintance was blasted. And in truth, had not my ardor been uncommonly strong, and my resolution uncommonly persevering, so rough a reception might have deterred me forever from making any further attempts.... I was highly pleased with the extraordinary vigor of his conversation, and regretted that I was drawn away from it by an engagement at another place. I had for a part of the evening been left alone with him, and had ventured to make an observation now and then, which he received very civilly; so that I was satisfied that though there was a roughness in his manner, there was no ill-nature in his disposition. Davies followed me to the door, and when I complained to him a little of the hard blows which the great man had given me, he kindly took upon him to console me by saying, " Don't be uneasy. I can see he likes you very well." A few days afterward I called on Davies, and asked him if he thought I might take the liberty of waiting on Mr. Johnson at his chambers in the Temple. He said I certainly might, and that Mr. Johnson would take it as a compliment. So on Tuesday the 24th of May, after having been enlivened by the witty sallies of Messieurs Thornton, Wilkes, Churchill, and Lloyd, with whom I had passed the morning, I boldly repaired to Johnson. His chambers were on the first floor of No. 1, Inner Temple Lane, and I entered them with an impression given me by the Rev. Dr. Blair, of Edinburgh, who had been introduced to him not long before, and described his having "found the giant in his den;" an expression which, when I came to be pretty well acquainted with Johnson, I repeated to him, and he was diverted at this picturesque account of himself..... He received me very courteously; but it must be confessed that his apartment and furniture and morning dress were sufficiently uncouth. His brown suit of clothes looked very rusty; he had on a little shriveled unpowdered wig, which was too small for his head; his shirt-neck and the knees of his breeches were loose; his black worsted stockings ill drawn up; and he had a pair of unbuckled shoes by way of slippers. But all these slovenly particularities were forgotten'the moment that he began to talk. Some gentlemen, whom I do not recollect, were sitting with him; and when they went away, I also rose; but he said to me, "Nay, don't go." "Sir," (said I), "I am afraid that I intrude upon you. It is benevolent to allow me to sit and hear you." He seemed pleased with this compliment, which I sincerely paid him, and answered, "Sir, I am obliged to any man who visits me."-James Boswell. 90 90 RUTH! Where is truth but in the soul itself? Facts, objects, are but phantoms, matter-woven ghosts of this earthly night, at which the soul, sleeping here in the mire and clay of matter, shudders and names its own vague tremors, sense and perceptions Yet, even as our nightly dreams stir in us the suspicion of mysterious and immaterial presences, unfettered by the bonds of time and space, so do these waking dreams which we call sight and sound. They are divine messengers, whom Zeus, pitying his children, even when he pent them in this prison-house of flesh, appointed to arouse in them dim recollections of that real world of souls whence they came. Awakened once to them; seeing, through the veil of sense and fact, the spiritual truth of which they are but the accidental garment, concealing the very thing which they made palpable, the philosopher may neglect the fact for the doctrine, the shell for the kernel, the body for the soul, of which it is but the symbol and the vehicle.-Hypatia. 80 80 NGLAND and America are bound up together in peaceful fetters by the strongest of all the ligatures that can bind two nations to each other, namely, commercial interests; and which, every succeeding year, renders more impossible, if the term may be used, a rupture between the two Governments. -Richard Cobden. 30 de If you wish to appear agreeable in society, you must consent to be taught many things which you know already. -Lavater. O my dearest Cousin, Sim- Dearest, in place of a father most dear to me because it assures me So that, dearest Cousin, I do honor to you and all relatives and to my country. Yet, for all that, I hold you dear in the center of my heart, and when I hear your name, I feel as if I heard that of a father; and do not complain of me because I do not write, because I have to com plain of you that you sit pen in hand all day and let six months go by between one letter and the other. Still with all that, you will not make me angry with you, as you do wrongly with me. I have come fairly out in the matter of a wife, but, to return to that, I answer, that you may know, that Cardinal Bibieni wants me to have one of his relatives, and with the assent of you and the cousin priest I promised to do what his reverend lordship wanted, and I can not break my word. We are now more than ever on the point of settling and presently I shall advise you of everything Have patience, as the matter is in such a good way, and then should it not come off, I will do as you may wish, and know that if Francesco Buffo has offers for me, I have some of my own also, and I can find a handsome wife of excellent repute in Rome as I have heard. She and her relatives are ready to give me three thousand gold scudi as a dowry, and I live in a house at Rome, and one hundred ducats are worth more here than two hundred there (Urbino?); of this be assured Eternal spirit of the chainless mind! Brightest in dungeons, Liberty! thou art: For there thy habitation is the heart— The heart which love of thee alone can bind: And when thy sons to fetters are consigned To fetters, and the damp vault's dayless gloom Their country conquers with their martyrdom, And Freedom's fame finds wings on every wind. Chillon! thy prison is a holy place, For they appeal from tyranny to God. As to my stay in Rome, I can not live anywhere else for any time if only because of the building of St. Peter's, as I am in the Palace of Bramante; but what place in the world is more worthy than Rome, what enterprise more worthy than St. Peter's, which is the first temple of the world and the largest building that has ever been seen, the cost of which will exceed a million in gold? And know that the Pope has ordered the expenditure on building of sixty thousand ducats a year, and he never gives a thought to anything else He has given me a com |
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