Modern Eloquence Volume Ii Part 24

By the way, you have all heard of "George Washington and his little hatchet." The other day I heard a story that was a little variation upon the original, and I am going to take up your time for a minute by repeating it to you. It was to this effect: Old Mr. Washington and Mrs.

Washington, the parents of George, found on one occasion that their supply of soap for the use of the family at Westmoreland had been exhausted, and so they decided to make some family soap. They made the necessary arrangements and gave the requisite instructions to the family servant. After an hour or so the servant returned and reported to them that he could not make that soap. "Why not," he was asked, "haven't you all the materials?" "Yes," he replied, "but there is something wrong."

The old folks proceeded to investigate, and they found they had actually got the ashes of the little cherry tree that George had cut down with his hatchet, and there was no lye in it. [Laughter.]

Now, I a.s.sure you, there is no "lie" in what I say to you this afternoon, and that is, that I thank G.o.d for the sun of the Union which, once obscured, is now again in the full stage of its glory; and that its light is shining over Virginia as well as over the rest of this country.

We have had our differences. I do not see, upon reading history, how they could well have been avoided, because they resulted from different constructions of the Const.i.tution, which was the helm of the ship of the Republic. Virginia construed it one way. Pennsylvania construed it in another, and they could not settle their differences; so they went to war, and Pennsylvania, I think, probably got a little the best of it.

[General laughter.]

The sword, at any rate, settled the controversy. But that is behind us.

We have now a great and glorious future in front of us, and it is Virginia's duty to do all that she can to promote the honor and glory of this country. We fought to the best of our ability for four years; and it would be a great mistake to a.s.sume that you could bring men from their cabins, from their ploughs, from their houses and from their families to make them fight as they fought in that contest unless they were fighting for a belief. Those men believed that they had the right construction of the Const.i.tution, and that a State that voluntarily entered the Union could voluntarily withdraw from it. They did not fight for Confederate money. It was not worth ten cents a yard. They did not fight for Confederate rations--you would have had to curtail the demands of your appet.i.te to make it correspond with the size and quality of those rations. They fought for what they thought was a proper construction of the Const.i.tution. They were defeated. They acknowledged their defeat. They came back to their father's house, and there they are going to stay. But if we are to continue prosperous, if this country, stretching from the Gulf to the lakes and from ocean to ocean, is to be mindful of its own best interests, in the future, we will have to make concessions and compliances, we will have to bear with each other and to respect each other's opinions. Then we will find that that harmony will be secured which is as necessary for the welfare of States, as it is for the welfare of individuals. [Applause.]

I have become acquainted with Governor Beaver--I met him in Richmond.

You could not make me fight him now. If I had known him before the war, perhaps we would not have got at it. If all the Governors had known each other, and if all the people of different sections had been known to each other, or had been thrown together in business or social communication, the fact would have been recognized at the outset, as it is to-day, that there are just as good men in Maine as there are in Texas, and just as good men in Texas as there are in Maine. Human nature is everywhere the same; and when intestine strifes occur, we will doubtless always be able by a conservative, pacific course to pa.s.s smoothly over the rugged, rocky edges, and the old Ship of State will be brought into a safe, commodious, Const.i.tutional harbor with the flag of the Union flying over her, and there it will remain. [Applause.]

SIR FREDERIC LEIGHTON

VARIETY IN BRITISH ART

[Speech of Sir Frederic Leighton, as President of the Royal Academy, at the banquet held by that society, May 5, 1894. This speech followed upon that of Dr. Mandell Creighton, Bishop of Peterborough, who had proposed the "Prosperity of the Royal Academy," and the health of the President.]

MY LORD BISHOP:--I thank you for the appreciative tone in which you have spoken of art in general and of English art in particular. The kind terms in which you have commended this inst.i.tution and its work to this distinguished a.s.sembly must have gratified my colleagues as much as it has gratified me, and we thank you most warmly. I would also gratefully acknowledge the lenient words you have addressed to the occupant of this chair. More fortunate than last year at this season, I have to note to-day the loss of one only among the acting members of this body--that of a sculptor of much repute, whose first steps in art were taken under the stimulating guidance of a powerful artist, whose name is a just boast to the green island which gave him birth--John Henry Foley. Less vigorous, no doubt, than his eminent master, Charles Bell Birch, he yet imparted to his works great life and spirit, and the charm of a facile and picturesque execution, and, even in this day of renovation and growing strength in the practice of that stately art, sculpture in this country will miss him in its ranks. ["Hear! Hear!"]

From amongst the honorary retired a.s.sociates of this body another sculptor, W. F. Woodington, has been removed by death--an artist whom, for many years, age and infirmity had withdrawn altogether from public ken. The work of his vigorous prime may still be appreciated on the base of the Nelson column of Trafalgar Square.

But whilst our active ranks have suffered diminution by one death only within the year, two justly conspicuous men have fallen in the wider field of English art, both of them men of marked and distinctive personality--both painters, both, to me, deeply interesting. One of them, Albert Moore, an unbending upholder of the sufficiency in art of whatever is n.o.bly decorative, was a devoted student of the severer graces of h.e.l.lenic art, and married in his works spontaneous and supple gesture with forms of chaste sobriety, clothing them in delicately harmonious tones, of which the studied arrangement announced to the first glance the refined idiosyncrasy of his artistic temper. ["Hear!

Hear!"]

How great a psychological contrast is offered to the placid charm of these works by the fervor of those of the artist whom I have next to name, an artist of strong intellectual bent and steeped in human sympathies, the originator of the movement which startled humdrum people forty or more years ago, and produced a most interesting phase of English art! I speak of Ford Madox Brown, who recently pa.s.sed away in the fulness of respected years and in the unabated intensity of his convictions. I am not here to defend in every point the nature of those convictions; I am not wholly at one with them. Ardently admired by many, stimulating and highly interesting to a still larger circle of the intelligent, who did not, perhaps, wholly follow his doctrine, he was not altogether acceptable to the wider and less cultured public, which so largely influences the creation of that empty and fickle thing called popularity; for there was that in his work which was apt to rouse the uneasy dread of the not usual, which mostly marks the middling mind. But this, I fearlessly affirm, apart from his technical endowments and rare vividness of dramatic vision, in the work of no English hand burns a more ardent sympathy with human emotion or is revealed a more subtle observation of the outward signs and gestures by which these emotions are conveyed. [Cheers.]

The artistic memories which a.s.sociate themselves in our mind with Madox Brown and his concentrated energies, bring vividly before us, as we look upon the walls of this exhibition, or glance in thought over the wide area of contemporary production in England, the changes which two-score years have wrought in the character and tendencies of art in this country. As we wander through these--I rejoice to say, more than ever catholic and hospitable--galleries, within which the still young unfold, this year, so much vitality and promise--and, gentlemen, to us, the old, there is, believe me, no gladder sight or one more full of comfort--we are struck, not with a concentration of aim or purpose in the school, but rather with a radiation and scattering of effort in innumerable directions. No one, I think, can fail to observe the extraordinary differences of mood and manner shown in the works which have found equal shelter on these walls, and the wide multiplicity of individual personalities which they proclaim. In the range of figure painting, for instance, what variety of subject as well as of temper meets us! We see, not historic or domestic scenes alone; not alone scenes in which the rhythmic dream of beauty and of style is aimed at; but works also, not a few, of purely imaginative character--fanciful, mythological, allegorical, symbolic--amongst which latter, one especially, I think, is dominant in its powerful originality and the weird charm of its decorative pomp. In the region of landscape, no less, every mood is touched, and every a.s.sociation evoked, from the infinite solemnity of the silent Arctic solitudes to the infinite sweetness of a Surrey homestead nestling within its sheltered nook, or the laughter of the flower-fields of the Alps in June. What various temperament, too, we note in the expressional use of tone and color--here vivid and vibratory; there grave and soberly subdued.

In sculpture, again, though the display is numerically small, there are amongst various good works some that are salient. I will name one by a late alumnus of these schools, which has pa.s.sed into the hands of the nation, and, in another room, the dazzling sketch of a monument deeply pathetic in its occasion, and of which this country will, I believe, be justly and lastingly proud. On all hands then, in sum, we are conscious of Life. With it, we are aware in much of the art of the day of a certain feverish tentativeness, groping, as it were, sometimes after a new spirit, sometimes after a repristination of the old in a modern form; but everywhere, I repeat, we see Life. And, gentlemen, to those who, like myself, believe in the necessary triumph of the high over the less high, in the eventual sure survival of the wholesome and the strong, and in the falling away and withering of the vicious or the morbid, this sign is the most welcome, the most inspiriting, and the most hopeful sign of all. [Loud cheers.]

CHARLES G.o.dFREY LELAND

HANS BREITMANN'S RETURN

[Speech of Charles G. Leland at a dinner given in his honor by the Lotos Club, New York, January 31, 1880. Mr. Leland had just returned from a sojourn of eleven years abroad. Whitelaw Reid, the President of the Club, introduced Mr. Leland, and said in part: "Well, his long exile is over. With a true Philadelphian's fear of envious and jealous New York, he stayed abroad till they started a Pennsylvania line of steamers for him, and so smuggled him past Manhattan Island and into the Quaker City direct. Captured as he is to-night, I will not abuse his modesty by eulogy, yet this much I venture to say, and it is the eulogy the true humorist and the true man of letters will most highly prize. He deserves all the grateful honor we can pay him because he has made substantial additions to the sum of human enjoyment in the world. I give you the health of Mr. Leland, and with it our best wishes for his long life and prosperity to the end."]

MR. PRESIDENT AND GENTLEMEN:--I have been asked several times since my return what struck me most, after an eleven years' absence, and I should say it is the fact that I am remembered. It has never struck me so forcibly as this evening. I have been for eleven years over the sea; I have returned like the proverbial story, somewhat worn, perhaps, but still accepted, and I am very much gratified that it is so. Time pa.s.ses so rapidly, and especially here in New York, that to be remembered after so long an absence is especially gratifying.

I met in Europe a Mr. Boyd, whose family two centuries before had resided in Ireland. Mr. Boyd thought one day that he would go back and visit his relatives, and so he went back and met with an Irish cousin.

"Ah, Cousin Boyd," said his relative, "I am glad to see you, and though you have not been here for more than two hundred years, still I can easily trace the illegant resemblance." [Laughter.] Gentlemen, you seem inclined to trace the resemblance. I am still known, and that has touched me more than anything.

But I am not altogether so great a stranger to New York. To be sure, I was born in Philadelphia; that cannot be denied; but I have also lived in New York. I was a long time in New York, and, indeed, was a freeholder of the city. I once owned a piece of property here, on which a Dutchman planted his cabbages but never paid any rent--and I never asked him for any; finally I gave a man eighty dollars to take the property off my hands altogether. I also voted in New York; and in this I fared better than in freeholding, for I voted for Abraham Lincoln at his first election. [Applause.]

I have also been a business man in New York. I started "Vanity Fair,"

with Charles Browne [Artemus Ward] as an a.s.sistant, and I remember how I used to suggest the subjects to him, and how he used to write out the series of articles which have since become so widely known. The "Revue des Deux Mondes" recently gave a detailed account of the manner in which I brought out Artemus Ward, in which by far too much credit was given to me and too little to him. But this was all done in New York, and you will give me some credit for having aided such a man as Artemus Ward. But I am growing gossipy. I say all this, however, just to show that I have some claim to call myself a New Yorker. I was here for a long time, and here some of my best work was done. But what can I say to thank you for the kind manner in which you have received me?

Before I left London a gentleman said to me: "The two greatest honors of your country are to get a degree from Harvard, and to be a guest of the Lotos Club;" for you must know that they talk a great deal about you.

[Laughter.] This was said to me by an English gentleman of letters, for, as I said, you are extremely well known over there, and your hospitality is so celebrated that to have received the stamp of it is to be distinguished.

I said it was very strange, but the last thing that happened to me before leaving America was to receive the degree of A. M. from Cambridge, but I did not venture to aspire to the other one. And now the first thing that happens to me on my return is to receive your invitation. Gentlemen, ambition can no further go. [Laughter.] As Horace says, a man may change his skies, but not his disposition, and I wish to show you that I have not forgotten my manners while abroad; and, in this connection, that a good speech should have a short answer. A very excellent speech preceded mine. I have made my answer altogether too long. Thanking you from my heart, for your courteous kindness, I now take my seat. [Applause.]

ABRAHAM LINCOLN

CENTRAL IDEAS OF THE REPUBLIC

[Fragment of a speech of Abraham Lincoln at the Republican banquet in Chicago, December 10, 1856. The rest of this speech, if it was ever reported, is presumably no longer extant, as it is not published in any collection of Lincoln's speeches.]

GENTLEMEN:--We have another annual presidential message. Like a rejected lover making merry at the wedding of his rival, the President felicitates himself hugely over the late presidential election. He considers the result a signal triumph of good principles and good men, and a very pointed rebuke of bad ones. He says the people did it. He forgets that the "people," as he complacently calls only those who voted for Buchanan, are in a minority of the whole people by about four hundred thousand votes--one full tenth of all the votes. Remembering this, he might perceive that the "rebuke" may not be quite as durable as he seems to think--that the majority may not choose to remain permanently rebuked by that minority.

The President thinks the great body of us Fremonters, being ardently attached to liberty, in the abstract, were duped by a few wicked and designing men. There is a slight difference of opinion on this. We think he, being ardently attached to the hope of a second term, in the concrete, was duped by men who hate liberty every way. He is the cat's-paw. By much dragging of chestnuts from the fire for others to eat, his claws are burnt off to the gristle, and he is thrown aside as unfit for further use. As the fool said of King Lear, when his daughters had turned him out of doors, "He's a sh.e.l.led peascod."

So far as the President charges us with a desire to "change the domestic inst.i.tutions of existing States," and of "doing everything in our power to deprive the Const.i.tution and the laws of moral authority,"

for the whole party on belief, and for myself on knowledge, I p.r.o.nounce the charge an unmixed and unmitigated falsehood.

Our government rests in public opinion. Whoever can change public opinion can change the government practically just so much. Public opinion, on any subject, always has a central idea, from which all its minor thoughts radiate. That central idea in our political public opinion at the beginning was, and until recently has continued to be, the equality of men. And although it has always submitted patiently to whatever of inequality there seemed to be as matter of actual necessity, its constant working has been a steady progress toward the practical equality of all men. The late presidential election was a struggle by one party to discard that central idea and to subst.i.tute for it the opposite idea that slavery is right in the abstract, the workings of which as a central idea may be the perpetuity of human slavery and its extension to all countries and colors. Less than a year ago the Richmond "Enquirer," an avowed advocate of slavery regardless of color, in order to favor his views, invented the phrase "State equality," and now the President, in his message, adopts the "Enquirer's" catch-phrase, telling us the people "have a.s.serted the const.i.tutional equality of each and all the States of the Union as States." The President flatters himself that the new central idea is completely inaugurated; and so indeed it is, so far as the mere fact of a presidential election can inaugurate it. To us it is left to know that the majority of the people have not yet declared for it, and to hope that they never will. All of us who did not vote for Mr. Buchanan, taken together, are a majority of four hundred thousand.

But in the late contest we were divided between Fremont and Fillmore.

Can we not come together for the future? Let every one who really believes, and is resolved, that free society is not and shall not be a failure, and who can conscientiously declare that in the past contest he has done only what he thought best--let every such one have charity to believe that every other one can say as much. Thus let bygones be bygones; let past differences as nothing be; and with steady eye on the real issue, let us reinaugurate the good old central ideas of the Republic. We can do it. The human heart is with us: G.o.d is with us. We shall again be able not to declare that "all States as States are equal," nor yet that "all citizens as citizens are equal," but to renew the broader, better declaration, including both these and much more, "that all men are created equal." [Applause.]

[Ill.u.s.tration: _FANEUIL HALL_

_Photogravure after a photograph_

This historic "Cradle of Liberty" yields to no building in America, save perhaps Independence Hall, in interest. Faneuil Hall, in Boston, was built in 1740, by Peter Faneuil, a wealthy merchant, and presented to the town for a town-hall and market uses, to which it has been devoted ever since. In 1761 it was injured by fire, but was rebuilt by the town in the following year. In 1805 it was considerably enlarged and improved. During the troublous times which preceded the Revolution, it was the scene of most exciting public meetings; and the great patriot orators of that day sounded from this platform the stirring notes that gave the chief impulse of patriotism to the whole country.]

HENRY CABOT LODGE

THE BLUE AND THE GRAY

[Speech of Henry Cabot Lodge, delivered at a banquet complimentary to the Robert E. Lee Camp of Confederate Veterans, of Richmond, Va., given in Faneuil Hall, Boston, June 17, 1887. The Southerners were visiting Boston as the special guests of the John A. Andrew Post 15, Department of Ma.s.sachusetts, Grand Army of the Republic. At the banquet Commander William B. Daley, of Post 15, presided. On either side of the presiding officer were seated, Col. A. L. Phillips, commander of the visiting camp, ex-Solicitor Gen. Goode of Virginia, the Hon. George D. Wise of Virginia, Governor Ames of Ma.s.sachusetts.