From the play, "Foscari"
Doge. What! didst thou never hear Of the old prediction that was verified When I became the Doge?
Zeno. An old prediction!
Doge. Some seventy years ago—it seems to meAs fresh as yesterday—being then a ladNo higher than my hand, idle as an heir,And all made up of gay and truant sports,I flew a kite, unmatched in shape or size,Over the river—we were at our houseUpon the Brenta then; it soared aloft,Driven by light vigorous breezes from the seaSoared buoyantly, till the diminished toyGrew smaller than the falcon when she stoopsTo dart upon her prey. I sent for cord,Servant on servant hurrying, till the kiteShrank to the size of a beetle: still I calledFor cord, and sent to summon father, mother,My little sisters, my old halting nurse,—I would have had the whole world to surveyMe and my wondrous kite. It still soared on,And I stood bending back in ecstasy,My eyes on that small point, clapping my hands,And shouting, and half envying it the flightThat made it a companion of the stars,When close beside me a deep voice exclaimed—Aye, mount! mount! mount!—I started back, and sawA tall and aged woman, one of the wildPeculiar people whom wild Hungary sendsRoving through every land. She drew her cloakAbout her, turned her black eyes up to Heaven,And thus pursued: Aye, like his fortunes, mount,The future Doge of Venice! And beforeFor very wonder any one could speakShe disappeared.
Zeno. Strange! Hast thou never seen That woman since?
Doge. I never saw her more.
From "Tennyson's Poetical Works," published by Houghton MifflinCompany, Boston.
"Shall we fight or shall we fly?Good Sir Richard, tell us now,For to fight is but to die!There'll be little of us left by the time this sun be set."And Sir Richard said again: "We be all good Englishmen.Let us bang these dogs of Seville, the children of the devil,For I never turned my back upon don or devil yet."Sir Richard spoke and he laughed, and we roar'd a hurrah, and soThe littleRevengeran on sheer into the heart of the foe,With her hundred fighters on deck, and her ninety sick below;For half of their fleet to the right and half to the left were seen.And the littleRevengeran on thro' the long sea lane between.
And while now the greatSan Philiphung above us like a cloudWhence the thunderbolt will fallLong and loud,Four galleons drew awayFrom the Spanish fleet that day,And two upon the larboard and two upon the starboard lay,And the battle-thunder broke from them all.
And the sun went down, and the stars came out, far over the summer sea,But never a moment ceased the fight of the one and the fifty-three.Ship after ship, the whole night long, their high-built galleons came,Ship after ship, the whole night long, with her battle-thunder andflame;Ship after ship, the whole night long, drew back with her dead and hershame,For some were sunk, and many were shatter'd, and so could fight us nomore—God of battles, was ever a battle like this in the world before?
For he said: "Fight on! fight on!"Tho' his vessel was all but a wreck;And it chanced that, when half of the summer night was gone,With a grisly wound to be dressed, he had left the deck,But a bullet struck him that was dressing it suddenly dead,And himself he was wounded again, in the side and the head,And he said: "Fight on! Fight on!"
And the night went down, and the sun smiled out far over the summersea,And the Spanish fleet with broken sides lay round us all in a ring;But they dared not touch us again, for they feared that we still couldsting,So they watched what the end would be.And we had not fought them in vain,But in perilous plight were we,Seeing forty of our poor hundred were slainand half of the rest of us maimed for lifeIn the crash of the cannonades and the desperate strife;And the sick men down in the hold were most of them stark and cold,And the pikes were all broken and bent, and the powder was all of itspent;And the masts and the rigging were lying over the side;But Sir Richard cried in his English pride,"We have fought such a fight for a day and a nightAs may never be fought again!We have won great glory, my men!And a day less or moreAt sea or ashore,We die—does it matter when?Sink me the ship, Master Gunner—sink her, split her in twain!Fall into the hands of God, not into the hands of Spain!"
From a Memorial Day address, with the permission of C. P. Farrell, NewYork, publisher and owner of the Ingersoll copyrighted books.
The past rises before me like a dream. Again we are in the great struggle for national life. We hear the sounds of preparation; the music of boisterous drums; the silver voices of heroic bugles. We see thousands of assemblages, and hear the appeals of orators. We see the pale cheeks of women, and the flushed faces of men; and in those assemblages we see all the dead whose dust we have covered with flowers. We lose sight of them no more. We are with them when they enlist in the great army of freedom. We see them part with those they love. Some are walking for the last time in quiet, woody places with the maidens they adore. We hear the whisperings and the sweet vows of eternal love as they lingeringly part forever. Others are bending over cradles, kissing babes that are asleep. Some are receiving the blessings of old men. Some are parting with mothers who hold them and press them to their hearts again and again and say nothing. Kisses and tears, tears and kisses—divine mingling of agony and joy! And some are talking with wives, and endeavoring with brave words, spoken in the old tones, to drive from their hearts the awful fear. We see them part. We see the wife standing in the door with the babe in her arms—standing in the sunlight, sobbing. At the turn in the road a hand waves—she answers by holding high in her loving arms the child. He is gone, and forever.
We see them all as they march proudly away under the flaunting flags, keeping time to the grand, wild music of war,—marching down the streets of the great cities, through the towns and across the prairies, down to the fields of glory, to do and to die for the eternal right.
A vision of the future rises:—
I see our country filled with happy homes, with firesides of content— the foremost of all the earth.
I see a world where thrones have crumbled and kings are dust. The aristocracy of idleness has perished from the earth.
I see a world without a slave. Man at last is free. Nature's forces have by science been enslaved. Lightning and light, wind and wave, frost and flame, and all the secret-subtle powers of earth and air are the tireless toilers for the human race.
I see a world at peace, adorned with every form of art, with music's myriad voices thrilled, while lips are rich with words of love and truth; a world in which no exile sighs, no prisoner mourns; a world on which the gibbet's shadow does not fall; a world where labor reaps its full reward, where work and worth go hand in hand, where the poor girl trying to win bread with the needle—the needle that has been called "the asp for the breast of the poor"—is not driven to the desperate choice of crime or death, of suicide or shame.
I see a world without the beggar's outstretched palm, the miser's heartless, stony stare, the piteous wail of want, the livid lips of lies, the cruel eyes of scorn.
I see a race without disease of flesh or brain,—shapely and fair,—the married harmony of form and function,—and, as I look, life lengthens, joy deepens, love canopies the earth; and over all, in the great dome, shines the eternal star of human hope.
From an article in theCentury Magazine, June, 1906, with thePermission of the Century Company and of the author.
To our Northern eyes the intense brilliancy of the tropical and semi- tropical sky comes as a revelation. Sometimes at noon it is painfully dazzling; but the evening is a vision of prismatic light holding carnival in the air, wherein Milton's "twilight gray" has no part. Unless the sky is held in the relentless grip of a winter storm, the Orient holds no gray in its evening tones; these are translucent and glowing from the setting of the sun until the stars appear. In Greece we are dreamers in that subtle atmosphere, and in Egypt visionaries under the spell of an ethereal loveliness where the filigree patterning of white dome and minaret and interlacing palm and feathery pepper tree leaves little wonder in the mind that the ornamentation of their architecture is so ravishing in its tracery.
Outside the walls of Jerusalem on the north there is a point on a knoll which commands the venerable city that David took for his own. From here you can watch the variable glow of color spread over the whole breadth of country, from the ground at one's feet to the distant purple hilltops of Bethlehem. The fluid air seems to swim, as if laden with incense. The rocks underfoot are of all tones of lavender in shadow, and of tender, warm gleams in the light, casting vivid violet shadows athwart the mottled orange of the ground.
Down in the little valley just below us a tiny vineyard nestles in the half-light; the gray road trails outside; and beyond rise the walls, serene and stately, catching on their highest towers the last rays of the sun.
The pointed shaft of the German church lifts a gray-green finger tipped with rose into the ambient air. The sable dome of the Holy Sepulcher yields a little to the subtle influence, and shows a softer and more becoming purple.
All the unlovely traits and the squalor of the city are lost, so delicately tender is the mass of buildings painted against the background of distance.
It had been one of those days in March when the clouds of "the latter rains" had been blowing from the west. As the day drew near its close, the heavy mists assembled in great masses of ominous gray and blue, golden-edged against the turquoise sky. With such speed did they move that they seemed suddenly to leap from the horizon, and the vast dome of the heaven became filled with weird, flying monsters racing overhead. The violence of the wind tore the blue into fragments, so that what only a moment since was a colossal weight of cloud threatening to ingulf the universe, was now like a great host marshaled in splendid array, flying banners of crimson, whose ranks were ever changing, until they scattered in disordered flight across the face of the sky.
As the lowering sun neared the horizon, the color grew more and more vivid, until the whole heaven was aflame with a whirlwind of scarlet and gold and crimson, of violet and blue and emerald, flecked with copper and bronze and shreds of smoky clouds in shadow, a tempestuous riot of color so wild and extraordinary as to hold one spellbound.
Had not David beheld a similar sky when he wrote:—
O Lord my God, thou art very great;Thou art clothed with honor and majesty.Who coverest thyself with light as with a garment:Who stretchest out the heavens like a curtain:Who layeth the beams of his chambers in the waters:Who maketh the clouds his chariot:Who walketh upon the wings of the wind:Who maketh winds his messengers;His ministers a flaming fire.
From a speech before the New England Society of New York, December, 1886
I never so realized what this country was and is as on the day when I first saw some of these gentlemen of the Army and Navy. It was when at the close of the War our armies came back and marched in review before the President's stand at Washington. I do not care whether a man was a Republican or a Democrat, a Northern man or a Southern man, if he had any emotion of nature, he could not look upon it without weeping. God knew that the day was stupendous, and He cleared the heaven of cloud and mist and chill, and sprung the blue sky as the triumphal arch for the returning warriors to pass under. From Arlington Heights the spring foliage shook out its welcome, as the hosts came over the hills, and the sparkling waters of the Potomac tossed their gold to the feet of the battalions as they came to the Long Bridge and in almost interminable line passed over. The Capitol never seemed so majestic as on that morning: snowy white, looking down upon the tides of men that came surging down, billow after billow. Passing in silence, yet I heard in every step the thunder of conflicts through which they had waded, and seemed to see dripping from their smoke-blackened flags the blood of our country's martyrs. For the best part of two days we stood and watched the filing on of what seemed endless battalions, brigade after brigade, division after division, host after host, rank beyond rank; ever moving, ever passing; marching, marching; tramp, tramp, tramp— thousands after thousands, battery front, arms shouldered, columns solid, shoulder to shoulder, wheel to wheel, charger to charger, nostril to nostril.
Commanders on horses with their manes entwined with roses, and necks enchained with garlands, fractious at the shouts that ran along the line, increasing from the clapping of children clothed in white, standing on the steps of the Capitol, to the tumultuous vociferation of hundreds of thousands of enraptured multitudes, crying "Huzza! Huzza!" Gleaming muskets, thundering parks of artillery, rumbling pontoon wagons, ambulances from whose wheels seemed to sound out the groans of the crushed and the dying that they had carried. These men came from balmy Minnesota, those from Illinois prairies. These were often hummed to sleep by the pines of Oregon, those were New England lumbermen. Those came out of the coal-shafts of Pennsylvania. Side by side in one great cause, consecrated through fire and storm and darkness, brothers in peril, on their way home from Chancellorsville and Kenesaw Mountain and Fredericksburg, in lines that seemed infinite they passed on.
We gazed and wept and wondered, lifting up our heads to see if the end had come, but no! Looking from one end of that long avenue to the other, we saw them yet in solid column, battery front, host beyond host, wheel to wheel, charger to charger, nostril to nostril, coming as it were from under the Capitol. Forward! Forward! Their bayonets, caught in the sun, glimmered and flashed and blazed, till they seemed like one long river of silver, ever and anon changed into a river of fire. No end of the procession, no rest for the eyes. We turned our heads from the scene, unable longer to look. We felt disposed to stop our ears, but still we heard it, marching, marching; tramp, tramp, tramp. But hush,—uncover every head! Here they pass, the remnant of ten men of a full regiment. Silence! Widowhood and orphanage look on and wring their hands. But wheel into line, all ye people! North, South, East, West—all decades, all centuries, all millenniums! Forward, the whole line! Huzza! Huzza!
From "The New South," with the permission of Henry W. Grady, Junior
Dr. Talmage has drawn for you, with a master hand, the picture of your returning armies. He has told you how, in the pomp and circumstance of war, they came back to you, marching with proud and victorious tread, reading their glory in a nation's eyes! Will you bear with me while I tell you of another army that sought its home at the close of the late war? An army that marched home in defeat and not in victory—in pathos and not in splendor, but in glory that equaled yours, and to hearts as loving as ever welcomed heroes home. Let me picture to you the footsore Confederate soldier, as, buttoning up in his faded gray jacket the parole which was to bear testimony to his children of his fidelity and faith, he turned his face southward from Appomattox in April, 1865. Think of him, as ragged, half-starved, heavy-hearted, enfeebled by want and wounds, having fought to exhaustion, he surrenders his gun, wrings the hands of his comrades in silence, and, lifting his tear-stained and pallid face for the last time to the graves that dot the old Virginia hills, pulls his gray cap over his brow and begins the slow and painful journey. What does he find?—let me ask you who went to your homes eager to find, in the welcome you had justly earned, full payment for four years' sacrifice—what does he find when, having followed the battle-stained cross against overwhelming odds, dreading death not half so much as surrender, he reaches the home he left so prosperous and beautiful? He finds his house in ruins, his farm devastated, his slaves free, his stock killed, his barn empty, his trade destroyed, his money worthless; his social system, feudal in its magnificence, swept away; his people without law or legal status; his comrades slain, and the burdens of others heavy on his shoulders. Crushed by defeat, his very traditions gone; without money, credit, employment, material training; and besides all this, confronted with the gravest problem that ever met human intelligence—the establishing of a status for the vast body of his liberated slaves.
What does he do—this hero in gray, with a heart of gold? Does he sit down in sullenness and despair? Not for a day. Surely God, who had stripped him of his prosperity, inspired him in his adversity. As ruin was never before so overwhelming, never was restoration swifter. The soldier stepped from the trenches into the furrow; horses that had charged Federal guns marched before the plow, and the fields that ran red with human blood in April were green with the harvest in June; women reared in luxury cut up their dresses and made breeches for their husbands, and, with a patience and heroism that fit women always as a garment, gave their hands to work. There was little bitterness in all this. Cheerfulness and frankness prevailed. I want to say to General Sherman—who is considered an able man in our parts, though some people think he is kind of careless about fire—that from the ashes he left us in 1864 we have raised a brave and beautiful city; that somehow or other we have caught the sunshine in the bricks and mortar of our homes, and have builded therein not one ignoble prejudice or memory.
But in all this what have we accomplished? What is the sum of our work? We have found that in the general summary the free negro counts more than he did as a slave. We have planted the schoolhouse on the hilltop and made it free to white and black. We have sowed towns and cities in the place of theories, and put business above politics.
Above all, we know that we have achieved in these "piping times of peace" a fuller independence for the South than that which our fathers sought to win in the forum by their eloquence, or compel on the field by their swords.
From a speech before the New England Society of New York, December, 1886
I must not introduce a new habit into these New England dinners, and confine myself to the one theme. For eighty-one years your speakers have been accustomed to make the toast announced the point from which they start, but to which they never return. So I shall not stick to my text, but only be particular to have all I say my own, and not make the mistake of a minister whose sermon was a patchwork from a variety of authors, to whom he gave no credit. There was an intoxicated wag in the audience who had read about everything, and he announced the authors as the minister went on. The clergyman gave an extract without any credit to the author, and the man in the audience cried out: "That's Jeremy Taylor." The speaker went on and gave an extract from another author without credit for it, and the man in the audience said: "That is John Wesley." The minister gave an extract from another without credit for it, and the man in the audience said: "That is George Whitefield." When the minister lost his patience and cried out, "Shut up, you old fool!" the man in the audience replied: "That is your own."
Well, what about this Forefathers' Day? In Brooklyn they say the Landing of the Pilgrims was December the 21st; in New York you say it was December the 22d. You are both right. Not through the specious and artful reasoning you have sometimes indulged in, but by a little historical incident that seems to have escaped your attention. You see, the Forefathers landed in the morning of December the 21st, but about noon that day a pack of hungry wolves swept down the bleak American beach looking for a New England dinner and a band of savages out for a tomahawk picnic hove in sight, and the Pilgrim Fathers thought it best for safety and warmth to go on board the Mayflower and pass the night. And during the night there came up a strong wind blowing off shore that swept the Mayflower from its moorings clear out to sea, and there was a prospect that our Forefathers, having escaped oppression in foreign lands, would yet go down under an oceanic tempest. But the next day they fortunately got control of their ship and steered her in, and the second time the Forefathers stepped ashore.
Brooklyn celebrated the first landing; New York the second landing. So I say Hail! Hail! to both celebrations, for one day, anyhow, could not do justice to such a subject; and I only wish I could have kissed the blarney stone of America, which is Plymouth Rock, so that I might have done justice to this subject. Ah, gentlemen, that Mayflower was the ark that floated the deluge of oppression, and Plymouth Rock was the Ararat on which it landed.
But let me say that these Forefathers were of no more importance than the Foremothers. As I understand it, there were eight of them—that is, four fathers and four mothers—from whom all these illustrious New Englanders descended.
Now I was not born in New England, but though not born in New England, in my boyhood I had a New England schoolmaster, whom I shall never forget. He taught us our A, B, C's. "What is that?" "I don't know, sir." "That's A" (with a slap). "What is that?" "I don't know, sir." (With a slap)—"That is B." I tell you, a boy that learned his letters in that way never forgot them; and if the boy was particularly dull, then this New England schoolmaster would take him over his knee, and then the boy got his information from both directions.
But all these things aside, no one sitting at these tables has higher admiration for the Pilgrim Fathers than I have—the men who believed in two great doctrines, which are the foundation of every religion that is worth anything: namely, the fatherhood of God and the brotherhood of Man—these men of backbone and endowed with that great and magnificent attribute of stick-to-it-iveness.
From "Julius Cęsar"
I know that virtue to be in you, Brutus,As well as I do know your outward favor.Well, honor is the subject of my story.—I cannot tell what you and other menThink of this life; but, for my single self,I had as lief not be as live to beIn awe of such a thing as I myself.I was born free as Cęsar; so were you:We both have fed as well; and we can bothEndure the winter's cold as well as he:For once, upon a raw and gusty day,The troubled Tiber chafing with her shores,Cęsar said to me, "Dar'st thou, Cassius, nowLeap in with me into this angry flood,And swim to yonder point?" Upon the word,Accoutred as I was, I plunged in,And bade him follow: so, indeed, he did.The torrent roar'd, and we did buffet itWith lusty sinews, throwing it asideAnd stemming it with hearts of controversy;But ere we could arrive the point propos'd,Cęsar cried, "Help me, Cassius, or I sink!"I, as Aeneas, our great ancestor,Did from the flames of Troy upon his shoulderThe old Anchises bear, so from the waves of TiberDid I the tired Cęsar. And this manIs now become a god; and Cassius isA wretched creature, and must bend his body,If Cęsar carelessly but nod on him.He had a fever when he was in Spain,And, when the fit was on him, I did markHow he did shake: 'tis true, this god did shake:His coward lips did from their color fly;And that same eye, whose bend doth awe the world,Did lose his luster: I did hear him groan:Ay, and that tongue of his, that bade the RomansMark him, and write his speeches in their books,Alas, it cried, "Give me some drink, Titinius,"As a sick girl. Ye gods, it doth amaze meA man of such a feeble temper shouldSo get the start of the majestic world,And bear the palm alone.
Why, man, he doth bestride the narrow worldLike a Colossus, and we petty menWalk under his huge legs and peep aboutTo find ourselves dishonourable graves.Men at some time are masters of their fates;The fault, dear Brutus, is not in our stars,But in ourselves, that we are underlings.Brutus and Cęsar: what should be in that "Cęsar"?Why should that name be sounded more than yours?Write them together, yours is as fair a name;Sound them, it doth become the mouth as well;Weigh them, it is as heavy; conjure with 'em,Brutus will start a spirit as soon as Cęsar.Now, in the names of all the gods at once,Upon what meat doth this our Cęsar feed,That he is grown so great? Age, thou art shamed!Rome, thou hast lost the breed of noble bloods!When went there by an age, since the great flood,But it was fam'd with more than with one man?When could they say till now, that talked of Rome,That her wide walls encompass'd but one man?Now is it Rome indeed, and room enough,When there is in it but one only man.O, you and I have heard our fathers say,There was a Brutus once that would have brook'dThe eternal devil to keep his state in RomeAs easily as a king.
From "The New South," with the permission of Henry W. Grady Junior
The New South is enamored of her new work. Her soul is stirred with the breath of a new life. The light of a grander day is falling fair on her face. She is thrilling with the consciousness of growing power and prosperity. As she stands upright, full-statured and equal among the people of the earth, breathing the keen air and looking out upon the expanding horizon, she understands that her emancipation came because in the inscrutable wisdom of God her honest purpose was crossed and her brave armies were beaten.
This is said in no spirit of time-serving or apology. The South has nothing for which to apologize. She believes that the late struggle between the States was war and not rebellion, revolution and not conspiracy, and that her convictions were as honest as yours. I should be unjust to the dauntless spirit of the South and to my own convictions if I did not make this plain in this presence. The South has nothing to take back. In my native town of Athens is a monument that crowns its central hills—a plain, white shaft. Deep cut into its shining side is a name dear to me above the names of men, that of a brave and simple man who died in brave and simple faith. Not for all the glories of New England—from Plymouth Rock all the way—would I exchange the heritage he left me in his soldier's death. To the foot of that shaft I shall send my children's children to reverence him who ennobled their name with his heroic blood. But, sir, speaking from the shadow of that memory, which I honor as I do nothing else on earth, I say that the cause in which he suffered and for which he gave his life was adjudged by higher and fuller wisdom than his or mine, and I am glad that the omniscient God held the balance of battle in his Almighty hand, and that human slavery was swept forever from American soil—the American Union saved from the wreck of war.
This message, Mr. President, comes to you from consecrated ground. Every foot of the soil about the city in which I live is sacred as a battle ground of the Republic. Every hill that invests it is hallowed to you by the blood of your brothers, sacred soil to all of us, rich with memories that make us purer and stronger and better, speaking an eloquent witness in its white peace and prosperity to the indissoluble union of American States and the imperishable brotherhood of the American people.
Now what answer has New England to this message? Will she permit the prejudices of war to remain in the hearts of the conquerors, when it has died in the hearts of the conquered? Will she transmit this prejudice to the next generation, that in their hearts, which never felt the generous ardor of conflict, it may perpetuate itself? Will she withhold, save in strained courtesy, the hand which straight from his soldier's heart Grant offered to Lee at Appomattox? Will she make the vision of a restored and happy people, which gathered above the couch of your dying captain, [Footnote: General Ulysses S. Grant.] filling his heart with grace, touching his lips with praise and glorifying his path to the grave; will she make this vision on which the last sigh of his expiring soul breathed a benediction, a cheat and a delusion? If she does, the South, never abject in asking for comradeship, must accept with dignity a refusal; but if she does not, if she accepts in frankness and sincerity this message of good will and friendship, then will the prophecy of Webster, delivered in this very society forty years ago amid tremendous applause, be verified in its fullest and final sense, when he said: "Standing hand to hand and clasping hands, we should remain united as we have been for sixty years, citizens of the same country, members of the same government, united, all united now and united forever. There have been difficulties, contentions, and controversies, but I tell you that in my judgment,—
"'Those opposed eyes,Which like the meteors of a troubled heaven,All of one nature, of one substance bred,Did lately meet in th' intestine shock,Shall now, in mutual well-beseeming ranks,March all one way.'"
From the reply to Hayne, in the United States Senate, January, 1830. Little, Brown and Company, Boston, Publishers of "The Great Speeches and Orations of Daniel Webster"
The gentleman, sir, in declining to postpone the debate, told the Senate, with the emphasis of his hand upon his heart, that there was something ranklingherewhich he wished to relieve. It would not, Mr. President, be safe for the honorable member to appeal to those around him upon the question whether he did in fact make use of that word. But he may have been unconscious of it. At any rate, it is enough that he disclaims it. But still, with or without the use of that particular word, he had yet somethinghere, he said, of which he wished to rid himself by an immediate reply. In this respect, sir, I have a great advantage over the honorable gentleman. There is nothinghere, sir, which gives me the slightest uneasiness; neither fear, nor anger, nor that which is sometimes more troublesome than either, the consciousness of having been in the wrong. There is nothing, either originatinghere, or now receivedhereby the gentleman's shot. Nothing originating here, for I had not the slightest feeling of unkindness towards the honorable member. Some passages, it is true, had occurred since our acquaintance in this body, which I could have wished might have been otherwise; but I had used philosophy and forgotten them. I paid the honorable member the attention of listening with respect to his first speech; and when he sat down, though surprised, and I must even say astonished, at some of his opinions, nothing was farther from my intention than to commence any personal warfare. Through the whole of the few remarks I made in answer, I avoided, studiously and carefully, everything which I thought possible to be construed into disrespect. And, sir, while there is thus nothing originatingherewhich I wished at any time or now wish to discharge, I must repeat also, that nothing has been receivedherewhichrankles, or in any way gives me annoyance. I will not accuse the honorable member of violating the rules of civilized war; I will not say that he poisoned his arrows. But whether his shafts were or were not dipped in that which would have caused rankling if they had reached their destination, there was not, as it happened, quite strength enough in the bow to bring them to their mark. If he wishes now to gather up those shafts, he must look for them elsewhere; they will not be found fixed and quivering in the object at which they were aimed.
But the gentleman inquires whyhewas made the object of such a reply. Why washesingled out? If an attack has been made on the East, he, he assures us, did not begin it; it was made by the gentleman from Missouri. Sir, I answered the gentleman's speech because I happened to hear it; and because, also, I chose to give an answer to that speech, which, if unanswered, I thought most likely to produce injurious impressions. I did not stop to inquire who was the original drawer of the bill. I found a responsible indorser before me, and it was my purpose to hold him liable, and to bring him to his just responsibility, without delay.
Our opponents have charged us with being the promoters of a dangerous excitement. They have the effrontery to say that I am the friend of public disorder. I am one of the people. Surely, if there be one thing in a free country more clear than another, it is, that any one of the people may speak openly to the people. If I speak to the people of their rights, and indicate to them the way to secure them,—if I speak of their danger to the monopolists of power,—am I not a wise counsellor, both to the people and to their rulers?
Suppose I stood at the foot of Vesuvius, or Aetna, and, seeing a hamlet or a homestead planted on its slope, I said to the dwellers in that hamlet, or in that homestead, "You see that vapor which ascends from the summit of the mountain. That vapor may become a dense, black smoke, that will obscure the sky. You see the trickling of lava from the crevices in the side of the mountain. That trickling of lava may become a river of fire. You hear that muttering in the bowels of the mountain. That muttering may become a bellowing thunder, the voice of violent convulsion, that may shake half a continent. You know that at your feet is the grave of great cities, for which there is no resurrection, as histories tell us that dynasties and aristocracies have passed away, and their names have been known no more forever."
If I say this to the dwellers upon the slope of the mountain, and if there comes hereafter a catastrophe which makes the world to shudder, am I responsible for that catastrophe? I did not build the mountain, or fill it with explosive materials. I merely warned the men that were in danger. So, now, it is not I that am stimulating men to the violent pursuit of their acknowledged constitutional rights.
The class which has hitherto ruled in this country has failed miserably. It revels in power and wealth, whilst at its feet, a terrible peril for its future, lies the multitude which it has neglected. If a class has failed, let us try the nation.
That is our faith, that is our purpose, that is our cry. Let us try the nation. This it is which has called together these countless numbers of the people to demand a change; and from these gatherings, sublime in their vastness and their resolution, I think I see, as it were, above the hilltops of time, the glimmerings of the dawn of a better and a nobler day for the country and the people that I love so well.
From a lecture, "Toussaint L'Ouverture," with the permission ofLothrop, Lee and Shepard, Boston, publishers
You remember when Bonaparte returned from Elba, and Louis XVIII sent an army against him, Bonaparte descended from his carriage, opened his coat, offering his breast to their muskets, and saying, "Frenchmen, it is the Emperor!" and they ranged themselves behind him, his soldiers shouting, "Vive l'Empereur!" That was in 1815. Twelve years before, Toussaint, finding that four of his regiments had deserted and gone to Leclerc, drew his sword, flung it on the grass, went across the field to them, folded his arms, and said, "Children, can you point a bayonet at me?" The blacks fell on their knees, praying his pardon. It was against such a man that Napoleon sent his army, giving to General Leclerc, the husband of his beautiful sister Pauline, thirty thousand of his best troops, with orders to reintroduce slavery. Among these soldiers came all of Toussaint's old mulatto rivals and foes.
Holland lent sixty ships. England promised by special message to be neutral; and you know neutrality means sneering at freedom, and sending arms to tyrants. England promised neutrality, and the black looked out on the whole civilized world marshaled against him. America, full of slaves, of course was hostile. Only the Yankee sold him poor muskets at a very high price. Mounting his horse, and riding to the eastern end of the island, Samana, he looked out on a sight such as no native had ever seen before. Sixty ships of the line, crowded by the best soldiers of Europe, rounded the point. They were soldiers who had never yet met an equal, whose tread, like Cęsar's, had shaken Europe,—soldiers who had scaled the Pyramids, and planted the French banners on the Walls of Rome. He looked a moment, counted the flotilla, let the reins fall on the neck of his horse, and turning to Christophe, exclaimed: "All France is come to Hayti; they can only come to make us slaves; and we are lost!" He then recognized the only mistake of his life,—his confidence in Bonaparte, which had led him to disband his army.
Returning to the hills, he issued the only proclamation which bears his name and breathes vengeance: "My children, France comes to make us slaves. God gave us liberty; France has no right to take it away. Burn the cities, destroy the harvests, tear up the roads with cannon, poison the wells, show the white man the hell he comes to make";—and he was obeyed. When the great William of Orange saw Louis XIV cover Holland with troops, he said, "Break down the dikes, give Holland back to ocean"; and Europe said, "Sublime!" When Alexander saw the armies of France descend upon Russia, he said, "Burn Moscow, starve back the invaders"; and Europe said, "Sublime!" This black saw all Europe marshaled to crush him, and gave to his people the same heroic example of defiance.
From a speech in the United States Senate, March 24, 1898
I counseled silence and moderation from this floor when the passion of the nation seemed at white heat over the destruction of theMaine; but it seems to me the time for action has now come. No greater reason for it can exist to-morrow than exists to-day. Every hour's delay only adds another chapter to the awful story of misery and death. Only one power can intervene—the United States of America. Ours is the one great nation of the New World, the mother of American republics. She holds a position of trust and responsibility toward the peoples and affairs of the whole Western Hemisphere. It was her glorious example which inspired the patriots of Cuba to raise the flag of liberty in her eternal hills. We cannot refuse to accept this responsibility which the God of the universe has placed upon us as the one great power in the New World. We must act! What shall our action be? Some say, The acknowledgment of the belligerency of the revolutionists. The hour and the opportunity for that have passed away. Others say, Let us by resolution or official proclamation recognize the independence of the Cubans. It is too late for even such recognition to be of great avail. Others say, Annexation to the United States. God forbid! I would oppose annexation with my latest breath. The people of Cuba are not our people; they cannot assimilate with us; and beyond all that, I am utterly and unalterably opposed to any departure from the declared policy of the fathers, which would start this republic for the first time upon a career of conquest and dominion utterly at variance with the avowed purposes and the manifest destiny of popular government.
There is only one action possible, if any is taken; that is, intervention for the independence of the island. We cannot intervene and save Cuba without the exercise of force, and force means war; war means blood. The lowly Nazarene on the shores of Galilee preached the divine doctrine of love, "Peace on earth, good will toward men." Not peace on earth at the expense of liberty and humanity. Not good will toward men who despoil, enslave, degrade, and starve to death their fellow-men. I believe in the doctrine of Christ. I believe in the doctrine of peace; but men must have liberty before there can come abiding peace. When has a battle for humanity and liberty ever been won except by force? What barricade of wrong, injustice, and oppression has ever been carried except by force?
Force compelled the signature of unwilling royalty to the great Magna Charta; force put life into the Declaration of Independence and made effective the Emancipation Proclamation; force waved the flag of revolution over Bunker Hill and marked the snows of Valley Forge with bloodstained feet; force held the broken line of Shiloh, climbed the flame-swept hill at Chattanooga, and stormed the clouds on Lookout Heights; force marched with Sherman to the sea, rode with Sheridan in the Valley of the Shenandoah, and gave Grant victory at Appomattox; force saved the Union, kept the stars in the flag, made "niggers" men. The time for God's force has come again. Let the impassioned lips of American patriots once more take up the song:—
In the beauty of the lilies Christ was born across the sea,With a glory in His bosom that transfigured you and me.As He died to make men holy, let us die to make men free,For God is marching on.
Others may hesitate, others may procrastinate, others may plead for further diplomatic negotiation, which means delay, but for me, I am ready to act now, and for my action, I am ready to answer to my conscience, my country, and my God.
From a speech to the United States Senate, February 11, 1847
The President has said he does not expect to hold Mexican territory by conquest. Why, then, conquer it? Why waste thousands of lives and millions of money fortifying towns and creating governments, if, at the end of the war, you retire from the graves of your soldiers and the desolated country of your foes, only to get money from Mexico for the expense of all your toil and sacrifice? Who ever heard, since Christianity was propagated among men, of a nation taxing its people, enlisting its young men, and marching off two thousand miles to fight a people merely to be paid for it in money? What is this but hunting a market for blood, selling the lives of your young men, marching them in regiments to be slaughtered and paid for like oxen and brute beasts?
Sir, this is, when stripped naked, that atrocious idea first promulgated in the President's message, and now advocated here, of fighting on till we can get our indemnity for the past as well as the present slaughter. We have chastised Mexico, and if it were worth while to do so, we have, I dare say, satisfied the world that we can fight.
Sir, I have read in some account of your Battle of Monterey, of a lovely Mexican girl, who, with the benevolence of an angel in her bosom and the robust courage of a hero in her heart, was busily engaged during the bloody conflict, amid the crash of falling houses, the groans of the dying, and the wild shriek of battle, in carrying water to slake the burning thirst of the wounded of either host. While bending over a wounded American soldier, a cannonball struck her and blew her to atoms! Sir, I do not charge my brave, generous-hearted countrymen who fought that fight with this. No, no! We who send them— we who know what scenes like this, which might send tears of sorrow "down Pluto's iron cheek," are the invariable, inevitable attendants on war—we are accountable for this. And this—this is the way we are to be made known to Europe. This—this is to be the undying renown of free, republican America! "She has stormed a city—killed many of its inhabitants of both sexes—she has room"! So it will read. Sir, if this were our only history, then may God of His mercy grant that its volume may speedily come to a close.
Why is it, sir, that we, the United States, a people of yesterday compared with the older nations of the world, should be waging war for territory—for "room?" Look at your country, extending from the Alleghany Mountains to the Pacific Ocean, capable itself of sustaining in comfort a larger population than will be in the whole Union for one hundred years to come. Over this vast expanse of territory your population is now so sparse that I believe we provided, at the last session, a regiment of mounted men to guard the mail from the frontier of Missouri to the mouth of the Columbia; and yet you persist in the ridiculous assertion, "I want room." One would imagine, from the frequent reiteration of the complaint, that you had a bursting, teeming population, whose energy was paralyzed, whose enterprise was crushed, for want of space. Why should we be so weak or wicked as to offer this idle apology for ravaging a neighboring Republic? It will impose on no one at home or abroad.
Do we not know, Mr. President, that it is a law never to be repealed that falsehood shall be short-lived? Was it not ordained of old that truth only shall abide for ever? Whatever we may say to-day, or whatever we may write in our books, the stern tribunal of history will review it all, detect falsehood, and bring us to judgment before that posterity which shall bless or curse us, as we may act now, wisely or otherwise. We may hide in the grave (which awaits us all) in vain; we may hope there, like the foolish bird that hides its head in the sand, in the vain belief that its body is not seen; yet even there this preposterous excuse of want of "room" shall be laid bare and the quick- coming future will decide that it was a hypocritical pretense under which we sought to conceal the avarice which prompted us to covet and to seize by force that which was not ours.
From "Speeches and Lectures," with the permission of Lothrop, Lee andShepard, Boston, publishers.
Mr. Chairman: We have met for the freest discussion of these resolutions, and the events which gave rise to them. I hope I shall be permitted to express my surprise at the sentiments of the last speaker,—surprise not only at such sentiments from such a man, but at the applause they have received within these walls. A comparison has been drawn between the events of the Revolution and the tragedy at Alton. We have heard it asserted here, in Faneuil Hall, that Great Britain had a right to tax the Colonies, and we have heard the mob at Alton, the drunken murderers of Lovejoy, compared to those patriot fathers who threw the tea overboard! Fellow citizens, is this Faneuil Hall doctrine? The mob at Alton were met to wrest from a citizen his just rights,—met to resist the laws. We have been told that our fathers did the same; and the glorious mantle of Revolutionary precedent has been thrown over the mobs of our day. To make out their title to such defense, the gentleman says that the British Parliament had arightto tax these colonies. It is manifest that, without this, his parallel falls to the ground; for Lovejoy had stationed himself within constitutional bulwarks. He was not only defending the freedom of the press, but he was under his own roof, in arms with the sanction of the civil authority. The men who assailed him went against and over the laws. Themob, as the gentleman terms it,—mob, forsooth! certainly we sons of the tea-spillers are a marvelously patient generation!—the "orderly mob" which assembled in the Old South to destroy the tea were met to resist, not the laws, but illegal exactions. Shame on the American who calls the tea tax and stamp actlaws!Our fathers resisted, not the King's prerogative, but the King's usurpation. To find any other account, you must read our Revolutionary history upside down. Our state archives are loaded with arguments of John Adams to prove the taxes laid by the British Parliament unconstitutional,—beyond its power. It was not till this was made out that the men of New England rushed to arms. The arguments of the Council Chamber and the House of Representatives preceded and sanctioned the contest. To draw the conduct of our ancestors into a precedent for mobs, for a right to resist laws we ourselves have enacted, is an insult to their memory. The difference between the excitements of those days and our own, which the gentleman in kindness to the latter has overlooked, is simply this: the man of that day went for the right, as secured by the laws. They were the people rising to sustain the laws and constitution of the Province. The rioters of our day go for their own wills, right or wrong. Sir, when I heard the gentleman lay down principles which place the murderers of Alton side by side with Otis and Hancock, with Quincy and Adams, I thought those pictured lips [pointing to the portraits in the Hall] would have broken into voice to rebuke the recreant American,—the slanderer of the dead. The gentleman said that he should sink into insignificance if he dared to gainsay the principles of these resolutions. Sir, for the sentiments he has uttered, on soil consecrated by the prayers of Puritans and the blood of patriots, the earth should have yawned and swallowed him up.
I am glad, Sir, to see this crowded house. It is good for us to be here. When Liberty is in danger, Faneuil Hall has the right, it is her duty, to strike the keynote for these United States.
From "Hunting the Grizzly," with the permission of G. P. Putnam'sSons, New York and London, publishers.
One of my valued friends in the mountains, and one of the best hunters with whom I ever traveled, was a man who had a peculiarly light-hearted way of looking at conventional social obligations. Though in some ways a true backwoods Donatello, he was a man of much shrewdness and of great courage and resolution. Moreover, he possessed what only a few men do possess, the capacity to tell the truth. He saw facts as they were, and could tell them as they were, and he never told an untruth unless for very weighty reasons. He was preeminently a philosopher, of a happy, skeptical turn of mind. He had no prejudices.
On one occasion when we were out together we killed a bear, and after skinning it, took a bath in a lake. I noticed he had a scar on the side of his foot, and asked him how he got it, to which he responded, with indifference:—
"Oh, that? Why, a man shoo tin' at me to make me dance, that was all."
I expressed some curiosity in the matter, and he went on:
"Well, the way of it was this: It was when I was keeping a saloon in New Mexico, and there was a man there by the name of Fowler, and there was a reward on him of three thousand dollars—"
"Put on him by the State?"
"No, put on by his wife," said my friend; "and there was this—"
"Hold on," I interrupted; "put on by his wife, did you say?"
"Yes, by his wife. Him and her had been keepin' a faro bank, you see, and they quarreled about it, so she just put a reward on him, and so—"
"Excuse me," I said, "but do you mean to say that this reward was put on publicly?" to which my friend answered with an air of gentlemanly boredom at being interrupted to gratify my thirst for irrelevant detail:—
"Oh, no, not publicly. She just mentioned it to six or eight intimate personal friends."
"Go on," I responded, somewhat overcome by this instance of the primitive simplicity with which New Mexican matrimonial disputes were managed, and he continued:—
"Well, two men come ridin' in to see me to borrow my guns. My guns was Colt's self-cockers. It was a new thing then, and they was the only ones in town. These come to me, and 'Simpson,' says they, 'we want to borrow your guns; we are goin' to kill Fowler.'
"'Hold on for a moment,' said I, 'I am willin' to lend you them guns, but I ain't goin' to know what you'r' goin' to do with them, no, sir; but of course you can have the guns.'" Here my friend's face lightened pleasantly, and he continued:—
"Well, you may easily believe I felt surprised next day when Fowler come ridin' in, and, says he, 'Simpson, here's your guns!' He had shot them two men! 'Well, Fowler,' says I, 'if I had known them men was after you, I'd never have let them have the guns nohow,' says I. That wasn't true, for I did know it, but there was no cause to tell him that."
I murmured my approval of such prudence, and Simpson continued, his eyes gradually brightening with the light of agreeable reminiscence:—
"Well, they up and they took Fowler before the justice of peace. The justice of the peace was a Turk."
"Now, Simpson, what do you mean by that?" I interrupted.
"Well, he come from Turkey," said Simpson, and I again sank back, wondering briefly what particular variety of Mediterranean outcast had drifted down to Mexico to be made a justice of the peace. Simpson laughed and continued: "That Fowler was a funny fellow. The Turk, he committed Fowler, and Fowler, he riz up and knocked him down and tromped all over him and made him let him go!"
"That was an appeal to a higher law," I observed. Simpson assented cheerily, and continued:—
"Well, that Turk, he got nervous for fear Fowler was goin' to kill him, and so he comes to me and offers me twenty-five dollars a day to protect him from Fowler; and I went to Fowler, and 'Fowler,' says I, 'that Turk's offered me twenty-five dollars a day to protect him from you. Now, I ain't goin' to get shot for no twenty-five dollars a day, and if you are goin' to kill the Turk, just say so and go and do it; but if you ain't goin' to kill the Turk, there's no reason why I shouldn't earn that twenty-five dollars a day!' and Fowler, says he, 'I ain't goin' to touch the Turk; you just go right ahead and protect him.'"
So Simpson "protected" the Turk from the imaginary danger of Fowler, for about a week, at twenty-five dollars a day.
Then one evening he happened to go out and meet Fowler, "and," said he, "the moment I saw him I know he felt mean, for he begun to shoot at my feet," which certainly did seem to offer presumptive evidence of meanness. Simpson continued:—
"I didn't have no gun, so I just had to stand there and take it until something distracted his attention, and I went off home to get my gun and kill him, but I wanted to do it perfectly lawful; so I went up to the mayor (he was playin' poker with one of the judges), and says I to him, 'Mr. Mayor,' says I, 'I am goin' to shoot Fowler.' And the mayor he riz out of his chair and he took me by the hand, and says he, 'Mr. Simpson, if you do I will stand by you'; and the judge he says, 'I'll go on your bond.'"
Fortified by this cordial approval of the executive and judicial branches of the government, Mr. Simpson started on his quest. Meanwhile, however, Fowler had cut up another prominent citizen, and they already had him in jail. The friends of law and order, feeling some little distrust as to the permanency of their own zeal for righteousness, thought it best to settle the matter before there was time for cooling, and accordingly, headed by Simpson, the mayor, the judge, the Turk, and other prominent citizens of the town, they broke into the jail and hanged Fowler. The point in the hanging which especially tickled my friend's fancy as he lingered over the reminiscence was one that was rather too ghastly to appeal to our own sense of humor. In the Turk's mind there still rankled the memory of Fowler's very unprofessional conduct while figuring before him as a criminal. Said Simpson, with a merry twinkle of the eye: "Do you know, that Turk, he was a right funny fellow too after all. Just as the boys were going to string up Fowler, says he, 'Boys, stop; one moment, gentlemen,—Mr. Fowler, good-by,' and he blew a kiss to him!"
From "Departmental Ditties," with the permission of A. P. Watt andSon, London, and Doubleday, Page and Company, New York.
You may talk o' gin and beerWhen you're quartered safe out 'ere,An' you're sent to penny-fights an' Aldershot it;But when it comes to slaughterYou will do your work on water,An' you'll lick the bloomin' boots of 'im that's got it.Now in Injia's sunny clime,Where I used to spend my timeA-servin' of 'Er Majesty the Queen,Of all them blackfaced crewThe finest man I knewWas our regimental bhisti, Gunga Din.He was "Din! Din! Din!You limping lump o' brick-dust, Gunga Din!Hi! slippery hitherao!Water, get it! Panee lao! [Footnote: Bring water swiftly.]You squidgy-nosed old idol, Gunga Din."
The uniform 'e woreWas nothin' much before,An' rather less than 'arf o' that be'ind,For a piece o' twisty ragAn' a goatskin water-bagWas all the field-equipment 'e could find.When the sweatin' troop-train layIn a sidin' through the day,Where the 'eat would make your bloomin' eyebrows crawl,We shouted "Harry By!" [Footnote: O Brother]Till our throats were bricky-dry,Then we wopped 'im 'cause 'e couldn't serve us all.It was "Din! Din! Din!You 'eathen, where the mischief 'ave you been?You put some juldee in itOr I'll marrow you this minute, [Footnote: Hit you]If you don't fill up my helmet, Gunga Din!"
'E would dot an' carry oneTill the longest day was done;An' 'e didn't seem to know the use o' fear.If we charged or broke or cut,You could bet your bloomin' nut,'E'd be waitin' fifty paces right flank rear.With 'is mussick [Footnote: Water skin] on 'is back,'E would skip with our attack,An' watch us till the bugles made "Retire,"An' for all 'is dirty 'ide'E was white, clear white, insideWhen 'e went to tend the wounded under fire!It was "Din! Din! Din!"With the bullets kickin' dust-spots on the green.When the cartridges ran out,You could hear the front-files shout,"Hi! ammunition-mules an' Gunga Din!"
I sha'n't forgit the nightWhen I dropped be'ind the fightWith a bullet where my belt-plate should 'a' been.I was chokin' mad with thirst,An' the man that spied me firstWas our good old grinnin', gruntin' Gunga Din.'E lifted up my 'ead,An' he plugged me where I bled,An' 'e guv me 'arf-a-pint o' water-green:It was crawlin' and it stunk,But of all the drinks I've drunk,I'm gratefullest to one from Gunga Din.It was "Din! Din! Din!"'Ere's a beggar with a bullet through 'is spleen;'E's chawin' up the ground,An' 'e's kickin' all around:"For Gawd's sake git the water, Gunga Din!"
'E carried me awayTo where a dooli lay,An' a bullet come an' drilled the beggar clean.'E put me safe inside,An' just before 'e died:"I 'ope you liked your drink," sez Gunga Din.So I'll meet 'im later onAt the place where 'e is gone—Where it's always double drill and no canteen;'E'll be squattin' on the coals,Givin' drink to poor damned souls,An' I'll get a swig in hell from Gunga Din!Yes, Din! Din! Din!You Lazarushian-leather Gunga Din!Though I've belted you and flayed you,By the living Gawd that made you,You're a better man than I am, Gunga Din!
From "The Pickwick Papers"
Sergeant Buzfuz rose with all the majesty and dignity which the grave nature of the proceedings demanded, and having whispered to Dodson, and conferred briefly with Fogg, pulled his gown over his shoulders, settled his wig, and addressed the jury.
Sergeant Buzfuz began by saying that never, in the whole course of his professional experience,—never, from the very first moment of his applying himself to the study and practice of the law, had he approached a case with such a heavy sense of the responsibility imposed upon him,—a responsibility he could never have supported, were he not buoyed up and sustained by a conviction, so strong that it amounted to positive certainty, that the cause of truth and justice, or, in other words, the cause of his much-injured and most oppressed client,mustprevail with the high-minded and intelligent dozen of men whom he now saw in that box before him.
Counsel always begin in this way, because it puts the jury on the best terms with themselves, and makes them think what sharp fellows they must be. A visible effect was produced immediately; several jurymen beginning to take voluminous notes.
"The plaintiff is a widow; yes, gentlemen, a widow. The late Mr. Bardell, after enjoying, for many years, the esteem and confidence of his sovereign, as one of the guardians of his royal revenues, glided almost imperceptibly from the world, to seek elsewhere for that repose and peace which a custom-house can never afford."
This was a pathetic description of the decease of Mr. Bardell, who had been knocked on the head with a quart-pot in a public-house cellar.
"Of this man Pickwick I will say little; the subject presents but few attractions; and I, gentlemen, am not the man, nor are you, gentlemen, the men, to delight in the contemplation of revolting heartlessness and of systematic villainy."
Here Mr. Pickwick, who had been writhing in silence, gave a violent start, as if some vague idea of assaulting Sergeant Buzfuz, in the august presence of justice and law, suggested itself to his mind.
"I say systematic villainy, gentlemen," said Sergeant Buzfuz, looking through Mr. Pickwick, and talkingathim, "and when I say systematic villainy, let me tell the defendant, Pickwick,—if he be in court, as I am informed he is,—that it would have been more decent in him, more becoming, in better judgment, and in better taste, if he had stopped away.
"I shall show you, gentlemen, that for two years Pickwick continued to reside without interruption or intermission at Mrs. Bardell's house. I shall show you that, on many occasions, he gave halfpence, and on some occasions even sixpences, to her little boy; and I shall prove to you, by a witness whose testimony it will be impossible for my learned friend to weaken or controvert, that on one occasion he patted the boy on the head, and, after inquiring whether he had won anyalley torsorcommoneyslately (both of which I understand to be a particular species of marbles much prized by the youth of this town), made use of this remarkable expression: 'How should you like to have another father?' I shall prove to you, gentlemen, on the testimony of three of his own friends,—most unwilling witnesses, gentlemen,—most unwilling witnesses,—that on that morning he was discovered by them holding the plaintiff in his arms, and soothing her agitation by his caresses and endearments.
"And now, gentlemen, but one word more. Two letters have passed between these parties,—letters which are admitted to be in the handwriting of the defendant. Let me read the first:—'Garraway's, twelve o'clock. Dear Mrs. B.—Chops and Tomato sauce. Yours, Pickwick.' Gentlemen, what does this mean? Chops! Gracious heavens! and Tomato sauce! Gentlemen, is the happiness of a sensitive and confiding female to be trifled away by such shallow artifices as these? The next has no date whatever, which is in itself suspicious. 'Dear Mrs. B., I shall not be at home till to-morrow. Slow coach.' And then follows this very remarkable expression. 'Don't trouble yourself about the warming-pan.' Why, gentlemen, whodoestrouble himself about a warming-pan? Why is Mrs. Bardell so earnestly entreated not to agitate herself about this warming-pan, unless it is, as I assert it to be, a mere cover for hidden fire,—a mere substitute for some endearing word or promise, agreeably to a preconcerted system of correspondence, artfully contrived by Pickwick with a view to his contemplated desertion, and which I am not in a condition to explain?
"Enough of this. My client's hopes and prospects are ruined. But Pickwick, gentlemen,—Pickwick, the ruthless destroyer of this domestic oasis in the desert of Goswell Street,—Pickwick, who has choked up the well, and thrown ashes on the sward,—Pickwick, who comes before you to-day with his heartless Tomato sauce and warming-pans,—Pickwick still rears his head with unblushing effrontery, and gazes without a sigh on the ruin he has made. Damages, gentlemen, heavy damages, are the only punishment with which you can visit him, the only recompense you can award to my client. And for those damages she now appeals to an enlightened, a high-minded, a right-feeling, a conscientious, a dispassionate, a sympathizing, a contemplative jury of her civilized countrymen."
Ladies and Gentlemen: I see so many foine-lookin' people sittin' before me that if you'll excuse me I'll be after takin' a seat meself. You don't know me, I'm thinking, as some of yees 'ud be noddin' to me afore this. I'm a walkin' pedestrian, a travelin' philosopher. Terry O'Mulligan's me name. I'm from Dublin, where many philosophers before me was raised and bred. Oh, philosophy is a foine study! I don't know anything about it, but it's a foine study! Before I kirn over I attended an important meetin' of philosophers in Dublin, and the discussin' and talkin' you'd hear there about the world 'ud warm the very heart of Socrates or Aristotle himself. Well, there was a great manyimminentand learnedminthere at the meetin', and I was there too, and while we was in the very thickest of a heated argument, one comes to me and says he, "Do you know what we're talkin' about?" "I do," says I, "but I don't understand yees." "Could ye explain the sun's motion around the earth?" says he. "I could," says I, "but I'd not know could you understand or not." "Well," says he, "we'll see," says he. Sure'n I didn't know anything, how to get out of it then, so I piled in, "for," says I to myself, "never let on to any one that you don't know anything, but make them believe that you do know all about it." So says I to him, takin' up me shillalah this way (holding a very crooked stick perpendicular), "We'll take that for the straight line of the earth's equator"—how's that for gehography? (to the audience). Ah, that was straight till the other day I bent it in an argument. "Wery good," says he. "Well," says I, "now the sun rises in the east" (placing the disengaged hand at the eastern end of the stick). Well, he couldn't deny that. "And when he gets up he
Darts his rosy beamsThrough the mornin' gleams."
Do you moind the poetry there? (to the audience with a smile). "And he keeps on risin' and risin' till he reaches his meriden." "What's that?" says he. "His dinner-toime," says I; "sure'n that's my Latin for dinner-toime, and when he gets his dinner
He sinks to restBehind the glorious hills of the west."
Oh, begorra, there's more poetry! I fail it creepin' out all over me. "There," says I, well satisfied with myself, "will that do for ye?" "You haven't got done with him yet," says he. "Done with him," says I, kinder mad like; "what more do you want me to do with him? Didn't I bring him from the east to the west? What more do you want?" "Oh," says he, "you'll have to bring him back again to the east to rise next mornin'." By Saint Patrick! and wasn't I near betrayin' me ignorance, Sure'n I thought there was a large family of suns, and they rise one after the other. But I gathered meself quick, and, says I to him, "Well," says I, "I'm surprised you axed me that simple question. I thought any man 'ud know," says I, "when the sun sinks to rest in the west—when the sun—" says I. "You said that before," says he. "Well, I want to press it stronger upon you," says I. "When the sun sinks to rest in the east—no—west, why he—why he waits till it grows dark, and then he goesback in the noight toime!"
From "A Charity Dinner"
"Milors and Gentlemans!" commences the Frenchman, elevating his eyebrows and shrugging his shoulders. "Milors and Gentlemans—You excellent chairman, M. le Baron de Mount-Stuart, he have say to me, 'Make de toast.' Den I say to him dat I have no toast to make; but he nudge my elbow ver soft, and say dat dere is von toast dat nobody but von Frenchman can make proper; and, derefore, wid your kind permission, I vill make de toast. 'De brevete is de sole of de feet,' as you great philosophere, Dr. Johnson, do say, in dat amusing little vork of his, de Pronouncing Dictionnaire; and, derefore, I vill not say ver moch to de point. Ven I vas a boy, about so moch tall, and used for to promenade de streets of Marseilles et of Rouen, vid no feet to put onto my shoe, I nevare to have expose dat dis day vould to have arrive. I vas to begin de vorld as von garēon—or, vat you call in dis countrie, von vaitaire in a café—vere I vork ver hard, vid no habillemens at all to put onto myself, and ver little food to eat, excep' von old blue blouse vat vas give to me by de proprietaire, just for to keep myself fit to be showed at; but, tank goodness, tings dey have change ver moch for me since dat time, and I have rose myself, seulement par mon industrie et perseverance. Ah! mes amis! ven I hear to myself de flowing speech, de oration magnifique of you Lor' Maire, Monsieur Gobbledown, I feel dat it is von great privilege for von étrangé to sit at de same table, and to eat de same food, as dat grand, dat majestique man, who are de terreur of de voleurs and de brigands of de metropolis; and who is also, I for to suppose, a halterman and de chef of you common scoundrel. Milors and gentlemans, I feel dat I can perspire to no greatare honneur dan to be von common scoundrelman myself; but, hélas! dat plaisir are not for me, as I are not freeman of your great cité, not von liveryman servant of von of you compagnies joint-stock. But I must not forget de toast. Milors and Gentlemans! De immortal Shakispeare he have write, 'De ting of beauty are de joy for nevermore.' It is de ladies who are de toast. Vat is more entrancing dan de charmante smile, de soft voice, der vinking eye of de beautiful lady! It is de ladies who do sweeten de cares of life. It is de ladies who are de guiding stars of our existence. It is de ladies who do cheer but not inebriate, and, derefore, vid all homage to de dear sex, de toast dat I have to propose is, "De Ladies! God bless dem all!"