ttlt 
 
 TO THE HOMES OF EMINENT ORATORS 
 
 Vol. XIII. JULY, 1903. No. i 
 
 By ELBERT HUBBARD 
 
 Single Copies, 25 cents By the Year, $3.00 
 
LITTLE JOURNEYS 
 
 TO THE HOMES OF 
 
 EMINENT ORATORS 
 
 By ELBERT HUBBARD 
 
 SUBJECTS AS FOLLOWS 
 
 i Pericles 
 2 Mark Antony 
 3 Savonarola 
 4 Martin Luther 
 5 Edmund Burke 
 6 William Pitt 
 
 7 Marat 
 8 Robert Ihgerspll 
 9 John Randolph 
 10 Thomas Starr King 
 ii Henry Ward Beecher 
 12 Wendell Phillips 
 
 One booklet a month will be issued as usual, begin 
 ning on January ist. 
 
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GIFT OF 
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Little 
 
 pounneys 
 
 To the Homes of 
 
 EMINENT 
 
 [ORATORS 
 
 arat 
 
 Written by Elbent 
 Hubband 6 done 
 into a Book by the 
 Royci*oftei*$ at the 
 Shop, icbicb is in 
 East Jluttotta, Deto 
 Yoitk, H. D. 1908 
 
cm 
 
 JEAN PAUL MARAT 
 
CITIZENS: You see before you the widow of Marat. I do not 
 ^ come here to ask your favors, such as cupidity would covet, or 
 even such as would relieve indigence, Marat s widow needs no 
 more than a tomb. Before arriving at that happy termination to my 
 existence, however, I come to ask that justice may be done in respect 
 to the reports recently put forth in this body against the memory of 
 at once the most intrepid and the most outraged defender of the 
 people. ***** 
 
 SIMONNE EVRARD MARAT, to the Convention. 
 
JEAN PAUL MARAT 
 
 |HE French Revolution traces a lineal 
 descent direct from Voltaire and Jean 
 Jacques Rousseau. These men were 
 contemporaries ; they came to the same 
 conclusions, expressing the same 
 thought, each in his own way, absolute 
 ly independent of the other. And as 
 genius seldom recognizes genius, neither 
 knew the greatness of the other. 
 Voltaire was an aristocrat the friend 
 of kings and courtiers, the brilliant 
 cynic, the pet of the salons and the cen 
 ter of the culture and brains of his time. 
 Q Rousseau was a man of the people, 
 plain and unpretentious a man with 
 out ambition a dreamer. His first writ 
 ings were mere debating-society mono 
 logues, done for his own amusement 
 and the half dozen or so cronies who 
 cared to listen. 
 
 But, as he wrote, things came to him 
 the significance of his words became to 
 him apparent. Opposition made it neces 
 sary to define his position, and threat 
 made it wise to amplify and explain. 
 He grew through exercise, as all men 
 do who grow at all; the spirit of the 
 times acted upon him, and knowledge 
 unrolled as a scroll. 
 
JEAN PAUL MARAT 
 
 The sum of Rousseau s political philosophy found 
 embodiment in his book, "The Social Contract," and 
 his ideas on education in "Lavania." "The Social 
 Contract" became the bible of the Revolution, and as 
 Emerson says all of our philosophy will be found in 
 Plato, so in a more exact sense can every argument 
 of the men of the Revolution be found in "The Social 
 Contract." But Rousseau did not know what fire 
 brands he was supplying. He was essentially a man 
 of peace he launched these children of his brain, in 
 differently, like his children of the flesh, upon the 
 world and left their fate to the god of Chance. 
 
 OUT of the dust and din of the French Revo 
 lution, now seen by us on the horizon of time, 
 there emerge four names : Robespierre, Mira- 
 beau, Danton and Marat. 
 
 Undaunted men all, hated and loved, feared and idol 
 ized, despised and deified even yet we find it hard to 
 gauge their worth, and give due credit for the good 
 that was in each. 
 
 Oratory played a most important part in bringing 
 about the explosion. Oratory arouses passion fear, 
 vengeance, hate and draws a beautiful picture of 
 peace and plenty just beyond. 
 
 Without oratory there would have been no political 
 revolution in France, nor elsewhere. 
 Politics, more than any other function of human affairs, 
 
JEAN PAUL MARAT 
 
 turns on oratory. Orators make and unmake kings, 
 but kings are seldom orators, and orators never secure 
 thrones. Orators are made to die the cross, the torch, 
 the noose, the guillotine, the dagger awaits them. 
 They die through the passion that they fan to flame 
 the fear they generate turns upon themselves, and 
 they are no more. 
 
 But they have their reward. Their names are not writ 
 in water, rather are they traced in blood on history s 
 page. We know them, while the ensconced smug and 
 successful have sunk into oblivion; and if now and 
 then a name like that of Pilate or Caiphas or Judas 
 comes to us, it is only because fate has linked the 
 man to his victim, like unto that Roman soldier who 
 thrust his spear into the side of the Unselfish Man. 
 Q In the qualities that mark the four chief orators of the 
 French Revolution, there is much alloy much that 
 seems like clay. Each had undergone an apprentice 
 ship to Fate each had been preparing for his work; 
 and in this preparation who shall say what lessons 
 could have been omitted and what not! Explosions 
 require time to prepare revolutions, political and 
 domestic, are a long time getting ready. Orators, like 
 artists, must go as did Dante, down into the nether 
 regions and get a glimpse of hell. 
 
JEAN PAUL MARAT 
 
 JEAN PAUL MARAT was exactly five feet high, 
 and his weight when at his best was one hundred 
 and twenty pounds just the weight of Shakes 
 peare. Jean Paul had a nose like the beak of a hawk, 
 an eye like an eagle, a mouth that matched his nose, 
 and a chin that argued trouble. Not only did he have 
 red hair, but Carlyle refers to him as " red-headed." 
 QHis parents were poor and obscure people, and his 
 relationship with them seems a pure matter of acci 
 dent. He was born at the village of Beaudry, Switzer 
 land, in 1743. His childhood and boyhood were that of 
 any other peasant boy born into a family where poverty 
 held grim sway, and toil and hardship never relaxed 
 their chilling grasp. 
 
 His education was of the chance kind but education 
 anyway depends upon yourself colleges only supply 
 a few opportunities, and it lies with the student 
 whether he will improve them or not. 
 The ignorance of his parents and the squalor of his 
 surroundings acted upon Jean Paul Marat as a spur, 
 and from his fourteenth year the idea of cultivating 
 his mental estate was strong upon him. 
 Switzerland has ever been the refuge of the man who 
 dares to think. It was there John Calvin lived, de 
 manding the right to his own belief, but occasionally 
 denying others that precious privilege; a few miles 
 away at beautiful Coppet resided Madame de Stael, 
 the daughter of Necker; at Geneva, Rousseau wrote, 
 and to name that beautiful little island in the Rhone 
 
JEAN PAUL MARAT 
 
 after him, was not necessary to make his fame endure ; 
 but a little way from Beaudry lived Voltaire, pointing 
 his bony finger at every hypocrite in Christendom. 
 QBut as in Greece, in her days of glory, the thinkers 
 were few; so in Switzerland, the land of freedom, the 
 many have been, and are, chained to superstition. 
 Jean Paul Marat saw their pride was centered in a 
 silver crucifix, "that keeps a man from harm," their 
 conscience committed to a priest; their labors for the 
 rich; their days the same, from the rising of the sun 
 to its going down. They did not love, and their hate 
 was but a peevish dislike. They followed their dull 
 routine and died the death, hopeful that they would 
 get the reward in another world which was denied 
 them in this. QAnd Jean Paul Marat grew to scorn 
 the few who would thus enslave the many. For priest 
 and publican he had only aversion. 
 Jean Paul Marat, the bantam, read Voltaire and 
 steeped himself in Rousseau, and the desire grew 
 strong upon him to do, and dare, and to become. 
 Tourists had told him of England, and like all hopeful 
 and child-like minds, he imagined the excellent to be 
 far-off, and the splendid at a distance : Great Britain 
 was to him the Land of Promise. 
 
 In the countenance of young Marat was a strange 
 mixture of the ludicrous and terrible. This, with 
 his insignificant size, and a bodily strength that 
 was a miracle of surprise, won the admiration of an 
 English gentleman ; and when the tourist started back 
 
JEAN PAUL MARAT 
 
 for Albion, the lusty dwarf rode on the box, duly ar 
 ticled, without consent of his parents, as a valet. 
 QAs a servant he was active, alert, intelligent, atten 
 tive. He might have held his position indefinitely, and 
 been handed down to the next generation with the 
 family plate, had he kept a civil tongue in his red 
 head and not quoted Descartes and Jean Jacques. 
 QHe had ideas, and he expressed them. He was the 
 central sun below-stairs, and passed judgment upon 
 the social order without stint, even to occasionally 
 argufying economics with his master, the Baron, as 
 he brushed his breeches. 
 
 This Baron is known to history through two facts 
 one, that Jean Paul Marat brushed his breeches, and 
 second, that he evolved a new breed offices. 
 Now the master was rich, with an entail of six thou 
 sand acres and an income of five thousand pounds, and 
 very naturally he was surprised amazed to hear 
 that any one should question the divine origin of the 
 social order & jf 
 
 Religion and government being at that time not merely 
 second cousins, but Siamese twins, Jean Paul had ex 
 pressed himself on things churchly as well as secular. 
 QAnd now, behold, one fine day he found himself 
 confronted with a charge of blasphemy, not to men 
 tion another damning count of contumacy and con 
 travention iff JF 
 
 In fact, he was commanded not to think, and was 
 cautioned as to the sin of having ideas. The penalties 
 
JEAN PAUL MARAT 
 
 were pointed out to Jean Paul, and in all kindness he 
 was asked to make choice between immediate punish 
 ment and future silence. 
 
 Thus was the wee philosopher raised at once to the 
 dignity of a martyr; and the sweet satisfaction of be 
 ing persecuted for what he believed, was his. 
 The city of Edinburgh was not far away, and thither 
 by night the victim of persecution made his way. 
 There is a serio-comic touch to this incident that 
 Marat was never quite able to appreciate the man 
 -was not a humorist. In fact, men headed for the 
 noose, the block, or destined for immortality by the 
 assassin s dagger, very seldom are jokers John Brown 
 and his like do not jest. Of all the emancipators of 
 men, Lincoln alone stands out as one who was per 
 fectly sane. An ability to see the ridiculous side of 
 things marks the man of perfect balance. 
 The martyr type, whose blood is not only the seed of 
 the church, but of heresy, is touched with madness. 
 To get the thing done, Nature sacrifices the man. 
 Q[ Arriving in Edinburgh, Marat thought it necessary 
 for a time to live in hiding, but finally he came out 
 and was duly installed as bar-keep at a tavern, and a 
 student in the medical department of the University 
 of St. Andrews a rather peculiar combination. 
 Marat s sister and biographer, Albertine, tells us that 
 Jean Paul was never given to the use of stimulants, 
 and in fact, for the greater part of his career, -was a 
 total abstainer. And the man who knows somewhat 
 
8 JEAN PAUL MARAT 
 
 of the eternal paradox of things can readily under 
 stand how this little tapster, proud and defiant, had a 
 supreme contempt for the patrons who gulped down 
 the stuff that he handed out over the bar. He dealt 
 in that for which he had no use ; and the American 
 bartender to-day who wears his kohinoor and draws 
 the pay of a bank cashier, is one who "never touches 
 a drop of anything." The security with which he 
 holds his position is on that very account. 
 Marat was hungry for knowledge and thirsty for 
 truth, and in his daily life he was as abstemious as 
 was Benjamin Franklin, whom he was to meet, know, 
 and reverence shortly afterward. 
 
 Jean Paul was studying medicine at the same place 
 where Oliver Goldsmith, another exile, studied some 
 years before. Each got his doctor s degree, just how we 
 do not know. No one ever saw Goldsmith s diploma 
 Dr. Johnson once hinted that it was an astral one 
 but Marat s is still with us, yellow with age, but 
 plain and legible with all of its signatures and the 
 big seal with a ribbon that surely might impress the 
 chance sufferers waiting in an outer room to see the 
 doctor, who is busy enjoying his siesta on the other 
 side of the partition. 
 
JEAN PAUL MARAT 
 
 IF it is ever your sweet privilege to clap eyes upon 
 a diploma issued by the ancient and honorable 
 University of St. Andrews, Edinburgh, you will 
 see that it reads thus : 
 
 " Whereas : Since it is just and reasonable that one 
 who has diligently attained a high degree of knowl 
 edge in some great and useful science, should be dis 
 tinguished from the ignorant- vulgar," etc., etc. 
 The intent of the document, it will be observed, is to 
 certify that the holder is not one of the "ignorant- 
 vulgar," and the inference is that those who are not 
 possessed of like certificates probably are. 
 A copy of the diploma issued to Dr. Jean Paul Marat 
 is before me, wherein, in most flattering phrase, is 
 set forth the attainments of the holder, in the science 
 of medicine. And even before the ink was dry upon 
 that diploma, the "science" of which it boasted, had 
 been discarded as inept and puerile, and a new one 
 inaugurated. And in our day, within the last twenty- 
 five years, the entire science of healing has shifted 
 ground and the materia medica of the "Centennial" 
 is now considered obsolete. 
 
 In view of these things, how vain is a college degree 
 that certifies, as the diplomas of St. Andrews still 
 certify, that the holder is not one of the "ignorant- 
 vulgar!" Is n t a man who prides himself on not be 
 longing to the "ignorant-vulgar" apt to be atrociously 
 ignorant and outrageously vulgar ? 
 Wisdom is a point of view, and knowledge, for the 
 
io JEAN PAUL MARAT 
 
 most part, is a shifting product depending upon envi 
 ronment, atmosphere and condition. The eternal 
 verities are plain and simple, known to babes and 
 sucklings, but often unseen by men of learning, who 
 focus on the difficult, soar high and dive deep, but 
 seldom pay cash. In the sky of truth the fixed stars 
 are few, and the shepherds who tend their flocks by 
 night, are quite as apt to know them as are the pro 
 fessed and professional Wise Men of the East and 
 Edinburgh jf $f 
 
 BUT never mind our little digression the value 
 of study lies in study. The reward of thinking 
 is the ability to think, and whether one comes 
 to right conclusions or wrong, matters little, says John 
 Stuart Mill in his essay "On Liberty." 
 Thinking is a form of exercise, and growth comes 
 only through exercise; that is to say, expression. 
 QWe learn things only to throw them away: no man 
 ever wrote well until he had forgotten every rule of 
 rhetoric, and no orator ever spake straight to the 
 hearts of men until he had tumbled his elocution into 
 the Irish Sea & *f 
 
 To hold on to things is to lose them. To clutch is to 
 act the part of the late Mullah Bah, the Turkish 
 wrestler, who came to America and secured through 
 his prowess a pot of gold. Going back to his native 
 country, the steamer upon which he had taken passage 
 
JEAN PAUL MARAT 11 
 
 collided in mid-ocean with a sunken derelict. Mullah 
 Bah, hearing the alarm, jumped from his berth and 
 strapped to his person a belt containing five thousand 
 dollars in gold. He rushed to the side of the sinking 
 ship, leaped over the rail, and went to Davy Jones 
 Locker like a plummet, while all about frail women 
 and weak men in life preservers bobbed on the sur 
 face and were soon picked up by the boats. The fate 
 of Mullah Bah is only another proof that athletes die 
 young, and that it is harder to withstand prosperity 
 than its opposite. 
 
 But knowledge did not turn the head of Marat. His 
 restless spirit was reaching out for expression, and 
 we find him drifting to London for a wider field. 
 England was then as now the refuge of the exile. 
 There is to-day just as much liberty, and a little 
 more free speech, in England than in America. We 
 have hanged witches and burned men at the stake 
 since England has, and she emancipated her slaves 
 long before we did ours. Over against the home- 
 thrust that respectable women drink at public bars 
 from John O Groat s to Land s End, can be placed the 
 damning count that in the United States more men 
 are lynched every year than Great Britain legally exe 
 cutes in double the time. 
 
 A too ready expression of the Rousseau philosophy 
 had made things a bit unpleasant for Marat in Edin 
 burgh, but in London he found ready listeners, and 
 the coffee-houses echoed back his radical sentiments. 
 
12 JEAN PAUL MARAT 
 
 QThese underground debating clubs of London started 
 more than one man off on the oratorical transverse. 
 Swift, Johnson, Reynolds, Goldsmith, Garrick, Burke 
 all sharpened their wits at the coffee-houses. I see the 
 same idea is now being revived in New York and 
 Chicago : little clubs of a dozen or so will rent a room 
 in some restaurant, and fitting it up for themselves, 
 will dine daily and discuss great themes, or small, 
 according to the mental calibre of the members. 
 During the latter part of the eighteenth century these 
 clubs were very popular in London. Men who could 
 talk or speak were made welcome, and if the new 
 member generated caloric, so much the better ex 
 citement was at a premium. 
 
 Marat was now able to speak English with precision, 
 and his slight French accent only added a charm to 
 his words. He was fiery, direct, impetuous. He was a 
 fighter by disposition and care was taken never to 
 cross him beyond a point where the sparks began to 
 fly. The man was immensely diverting and his size 
 was to his advantage orators should be very big or 
 very little anything but commonplace. The Duke of 
 Mantua would have gloried in Jean Paul, and later 
 might have cut off his head as a precautionary 
 measure rff <r 
 
 Among the visitors at one of the coffee-house clubs 
 was one B. Franklin, big, patient, kind. He weighed 
 twice as much as Marat: and his years were sixty, 
 while Marat s were thirty. 
 
JEAN PAUL MARAT 13 
 
 Franklin listened with amused smiles at the little 
 man, and the little man grew to have an idolatrous 
 regard for the big un. Franklin carried copies of a 
 pamphlet called " Common Sense," written by one T. 
 Paine. Paine was born in England, but was always 
 pleased to be spoken of as an American, yet he called 
 himself "A Citizen of the World." 
 Paine s pamphlet, "The Crisis," was known by heart 
 to Marat, and the success of Franklin and Paine as 
 writers had fired him to write as well as orate. 
 As a result, we have "The Chains of Slavery." The 
 work to-day has no interest to us excepting as a liter 
 ary curiosity. It is a composite of Rousseau and Paine, 
 done by a sophomore in a mood of exaltation, and 
 might serve well as a graduation essay, done in F 
 major. It lacks the poise of Paine, and the reserve of 
 Rousseau, and all the fine indifference of Franklin is 
 noticeable by its absence. 
 
 They say that Marat s name was "Mara" and his 
 ancestors came from County Down. But never mind 
 that his heart was right. Of all the inane imbecilities 
 and stupid untruths of history, none are worse than 
 the statements that Jean Paul Marat was a dema 
 gogue, hotly intent on the main chance. 
 In this man s character there was nothing subtle, 
 secret, nor untrue. He was simplicity itself, and his 
 undiplomatic bluntness bears witness to his honesty. 
 Qln London, he lived as the Mayor of Boston said 
 "William Lloyd Garrison lived in a hole in the ground. 
 
14 JEAN PAUL MARAT 
 
 His services as a physician were free to all if they 
 could pay, all right, if not, it made no difference. He 
 looked after the wants of political refugees, and head, 
 heart and pocket-book were at the disposal of those 
 who needed them. His lodging place was a garret, a 
 cellar anywhere, he was homeless, and his public 
 appearances were only at the coffee-house clubs, or 
 the parks where he would stand on a barrel and speak 
 to the crowd on his one theme of liberty, fraternity 
 and equality. His plea was for the individual. In order 
 to have a strong and excellent society, we must have 
 strong and excellent men and women. That phrase of 
 Paine s, "The world is my country: to do good is my 
 religion," he repeated over and over again. 
 
 IN the year 1779, Marat moved to Paris. He was 
 then thirty-six years old. In Paris he lived very 
 much the same life that he had in London. He 
 established himself as a physician, and might have 
 made a decided success had he put all of his eggs 
 in one basket and then watched the basket. 
 But he did n t. Franklin had inspired him with a pas 
 sion for invention : he rubbed amber with wool, made 
 a battery and applied the scheme in a crude way to 
 the healing art. He wrote articles on electricity and 
 even foreshadowed the latter day announcement that 
 electricity is life. And all the time he discussed eco 
 nomics, and gave out through speech and written 
 
JEAN PAUL MARAT 15 
 
 word his views as to the rights of the people. He saw 
 the needs of the poor he perceived how through lack 
 of nourishment there developed a craving for stimu 
 lants, and observed how disease and death fasten 
 themselves upon the ill-fed and the ill-taught. To al 
 leviate the suffering of the poor, he opened a dispen 
 sary as he had done in London, and gave free medical 
 attendance to all who applied. At this dispensary, he 
 gave lectures on certain days upon hygiene, at which 
 times he never failed to introduce his essence of 
 Rousseau and Voltaire. 
 
 Some one called him "the people s friend." The name 
 stuck he liked it. 
 
 In August, 1789, this "terrible dwarf" was standing 
 on his barrel in Paris haranguing crowds with an 
 oratory that was tremendous in its impassioned qual 
 ity. Men stopped to laugh and remained to applaud. 
 QNot only did he denounce the nobility, but he saw 
 danger in the liberal leaders, and among others, Mira- 
 beau came in for scathing scorn. Of all the insane 
 paradoxes this one is the most paradoxical that men 
 will hate those who are most like themselves. Family 
 feuds, and the wrangles of denominations that, to 
 outsiders, hold the same faith, are common. When 
 churches are locked in America, it is done to keep 
 Christians out. Christians fight Christians much more 
 than they fight the devil. 
 
 Marat had grown to be a power among the lower 
 classes he was their friend, their physician, their 
 
16 JEAN PAUL MARAT 
 
 advocate. He feared no interruption and never sought 
 to pacify. At his belt, within easy reach, and in open 
 sight, he carried a dagger. 
 
 His impassioned eloquence swayed the crowds that 
 hung upon his words to rank unreason. 
 Marat fell a victim to his own eloquence, and the 
 madness of the mob reacted upon him. Like the 
 dyer s hand, he became subdued to that which he 
 worked in. Suspicion and rebellion filled his soul. 
 "Wealth to him was an offense he had not the 
 prophetic vision to see the rise of capitalism and 
 all the splendid industrial evolution which the 
 world is to-day working out. Society to him was 
 all founded on wrong premises and he would up 
 root it <f *T 
 
 In bitter words he denounced the Assembly and de 
 clared that all of its members, including Mirabeau, 
 should be hanged for their inaction in not giving the 
 people relief from their oppressors. 
 Mirabeau was very much like Marat. He, too, was 
 working for the people, only he occupied a public 
 office, while Marat was a private citizen. Mirabeau 
 and his friends became alarmed at the influence 
 Marat was gaining over the people, and he was or 
 dered to cease public speaking. As he failed to comply, 
 a price was put upon his head. 
 
 Then it was that he began putting out a daily address 
 in the form of a tiny pamphlet. This was at first called 
 "The Publiciste," but was soon changed to "The 
 
JEAN PAUL MARAT 17 
 
 People s Friend." Q Marat was now in hiding, but 
 still his words were making their impress. 
 In 1791, Mirabeau, the terrible, died died peacefully 
 in his bed. Paris went in universal mourning, and the 
 sky of Marat s popularity was darkened. 
 Marat lived in hiding until August of 1792, when he 
 again publicly appeared and led the riots. The people 
 hailed him as their deliverer. The insignificant size of 
 the man made him conspicuous. His proud defiance, 
 the haughtiness of his countenance, his stinging words, 
 formed a personality that made him the pet of the 
 people & 4T 
 
 Danton, the Minister of Justice, dared not kill him, 
 and so he did the next best thing he took him to his 
 heart and made him his right-hand man. It was a 
 great diplomatic move, and the people applauded. 
 Danton was tall, powerful, athletic and commanding, 
 just past his thirtieth year. Marat was approaching 
 fifty, and his suffering while in hiding in the sewers 
 had told severely on his health, but he was still the 
 fearless agitator. When Marat and Danton appeared 
 upon the balcony of the Hotel de Ville, the hearts of 
 the people were with the little man. 
 But behold, another man had forged to the front, and 
 this was Robespierre. And so it was that Danton, 
 Marat and Robespierre formed a triumvirate, and 
 ruled Paris with hands of iron. Coming in the name of 
 the people, proclaiming peace, they held their place 
 only through a violence that argued its own death. 
 
i8 JEAN PAUL MARAT 
 
 Q Marat was still full of the desire to educate to make 
 men think. Deprivation and disease had wrecked his 
 frame until public speaking was out of the question 
 the first requisite of oratory is health. But he could 
 write, and so his little paper, "The People s Friend," 
 went fluttering forth with its daily message. 
 So scrupulous was Marat in money matters that he 
 would accept no help from the government. He neither 
 drew a salary nor would he allow any but private 
 citizens to help issue his paper. He lived in absolute 
 poverty with his beloved wife, Simonne Evrard. 
 They had met about 1788, and between them had 
 grown up a very firm and tender bond. He was twenty 
 years older than she, but Danton said of her, " She 
 has the mind of a man." 
 
 Simonne had some property and was descended from 
 a family of note. "When she became the wife of Marat, 
 her kinsmen denounced her, refused to mention her 
 name, but she was loyal to the man she loved. 
 The psalmist speaks of something "that passeth the 
 love of woman," but the psalmist was wrong noth 
 ing does df *T 
 
 Simonne Evrard gave her good name, her family po 
 sition, her money, her life her soul into the keeping 
 of Jean Paul Marat. That his love and gratitude to 
 her were great and profound, there is abundant proof. 
 She was his only servant, his secretary, his comrade, 
 his friend, his wife. Not only did she attend him in 
 sickness, but in banishment and disgrace she never 
 
JEAN PAUL MARAT 19 
 
 faltered. She even set the type, and at times her arm 
 pulled the lever of the press that printed the daily 
 message *T 4f 
 
 Let it stand to the eternal discredit of Thomas Carlyle 
 that he contemptuously disposes of Simonne Evrard, 
 who represents undying love and unflinching loyalty, 
 by calling her a "washerwoman." Carlyle, with a 
 savage strain of Scotch Calvinism in his cold blood, 
 never knew the sacredness of the love of man and 
 woman to him sex was a mistake on the part of 
 God. Even for the sainted Mary of Galilee he has only 
 a grim and patronizing smile, removing his clay pipe 
 long enough to say to Milburn, the blind Preacher, 
 "Oh, yes, a country lass elevated by Catholics into a 
 wooden image and worshipped as a deity! " 
 Carlyle never held in his arms a child of his own and 
 saw the light of love reflected in a baby s eyes; and 
 nowhere in his forty-odd volumes does he recognize 
 the truth that love, art and religion are one. And this 
 limitation gives Taine excuse for saying, "He writes 
 splendidly, but it is neither truth nor poetry." 
 When Charlotte Corday, that poor deluded rustic, 
 reached the rooms of Marat, under a friendly pretence, 
 and thrust her murderous dagger to the sick man s 
 heart, his last breath was a cry freighted with love, 
 "A moi, chere amie ! " 
 
 And death-choked, that proud head drooped, and 
 Simonne, seeing the terrible deed was done, blocked 
 the way and held the murderess at bay until help 
 
20 JEAN PAUL MARAT 
 
 arrived. Q Hardly had Marat s tired body been laid to 
 rest in the Pantheon, before Charlotte Corday s spirit 
 had gone across the Border to meet his gone to her 
 death by the guillotine that was so soon to embrace 
 both Danton and Robespierre, the men who had in 
 augurated and popularized it. 
 
 All Paris went into mourning for Marat the public 
 buildings were draped with black, and his portrait dis 
 played in the Pantheon with the great ones gone. A 
 pension for life -was bestowed upon his widow, and 
 lavish resolutions of gratitude were laid at her feet in 
 loving token of what she had done in upholding the 
 hands of this strong man. 
 
 But Paris, the fickle, in two short years repudiated 
 the pension, the portrait of Marat was removed from 
 the Pantheon, and his body taken by night to another 
 resting place *f 4T 
 
 Simonne the widow, and Albertine the sister, sisters 
 now in sorrow, uniting in a mutual love for the dead, 
 lived but in memory of him. 
 
 But Carlyle was right this was a "washerwoman." 
 She spent all of her patrimony in aiding her husband 
 to publish and distribute his writings, and after his 
 death, when friends proved false and even the obdu 
 rate kinsmen still considered her name pollution, she 
 took in washing to earn money that she might defend 
 the memory of the man she loved. 
 She was a washerwoman. 
 I uncover in her presence, and stand with bowed head 
 
JEAN PAUL MARAT 21 
 
 in admiration of the woman who gave her life for liberty 
 and love, and who chose a life of honest toil rather 
 than accept charity or all that selfishness and soft 
 luxury had to offer. She was a washerwoman, but 
 she was more she was a Woman. 
 Let Carlyle have the credit of using the word "wash 
 erwoman" as a term of contempt, as though to do 
 laundry work were not quite as necessary as to pro 
 duce literature. 
 
 The sister and widow wrote his life, republished very 
 much that he had written, and lived but to keep alive 
 the name and fame of Jean Paul Marat, whose sole 
 crime seemed to be that he was a sincere and honest 
 man, and was, throughout his life often unwisely 
 the People s Friend. 
 
 The portrait with this number is from a drawing made espe 
 cially for the author by his friend. Otto J. Schneider. The re 
 maining five portraits for this year will also be by Mr. Schneider. 
 
SO HERE ENDETH THE LITTLE JOURNEY TO THE HOME 
 OF JEAN PAUL MARAT: WRITTEN BY ELBERT HUBBARD. 
 THE BORDERS, INITIALS AND ORNAMENTS DESIGNED 
 BY SAMUEL WARNER, PRESSWORK BY LOUIS SCHELL, 
 & THE WHOLE DONE INTO A BOOK BY THE ROYCROFT- 
 ERS AT THEIR SHOP, WHICH IS IN EAST AURORA, IN 
 THE MONTH OF JULY, IN THE YEAR MCMIII 4 4 4 4 4 
 
From the Glenwood Tavern, Riverside, California. 
 
 ELL, well, well! "We have traveled about eight 
 thousand miles on this trip, but we never saw a hotel 
 to equal this. It is built on the plan of the old Mission 
 Monastery or hospice. There were a line of these 
 Missions, a hundred years ago, skirting the coast 
 from San Diego to San Francisco, just a day s jour 
 ney apart. These Missions were a refuge and a 
 home for the worn traveler he could stay as long as he wished and 
 pay what he could afford, and when he went away he took with 
 him the blessing of these men of God. 
 
 And if they served mankind and made the world better, were they 
 not truly Men of God ? I think so, and any man who does the same 
 now, is too. 
 
 This hotel is built and furnished after the general style of the Mis 
 sion. Its mission is to serve mankind and benefit humanity. And 
 surely if one of those good old monks could drop in here he would 
 think he was in Paradise. The place is really most luxurious, yet the 
 luxury is so subdued and unobtrusive that you do not notice it it 
 ministers to your every want. 
 
 When we were shown to these rooms there was that great half- 
 bushel basket of roses the morning dew still on them upon the 
 dresser, and baskets of fruit oranges, bananas, peaches and plums 
 on the table. A pitcher of ice water is at hand, and in the funny 
 little corner cupboard are sugar and lemons galore. And if we run short 
 of lemons, why, we can just lean out of the casement and pick a few 
 from that tree where a mocking bird warbles us welcome. No servants 
 seem to be in sight they move with soft- slippered feet and every 
 where we find this same quiet courtesy and good-cheer and loving 
 attention. What is beautiful is right. One man s spirit seems to run 
 thru the place that man is Frank M. Miller, Royal Roycrofter, fit 
 successor to the Men of God who looked after the Mission that once 
 stood on this same spot. Only Frank has Mrs. Frank to help him ! 
 And is n t every man who does things in a masterly way backed up 
 by a good woman ? Yes, and that is why Frank surpasses any mortal 
 monk who ever wore a cowl and chimed matin bells. Well, well, it is 
 good to be here. What a beautiful world it is ! 
 
ROYCROFT 
 
 Here is shown a roomy, comfortable settee, built as good as 
 the Roycroft artisans can make it. Fashioned in oak it is five 
 feet long, constructed in the old-time way and held together 
 with pin and slot. Finished in either Flemish or weathered 
 oak, as desired, the price is $30. 
 
 All Roycroft Furniture is made very solid and plain ; it will 
 last longer than we do and then be as good as new, nor will 
 it be out of style. If you are interested, send for our catalog. 
 
 The Roy crofters 
 
 EAST AURORA 
 NEW YORK 
 
curfew tolls the knell 
 of parting day; 
 The lowing herd winds 
 
 slowly o er the lea; 
 The plowman homeward 
 plods his weary way, 
 And leaves the world to 
 darkness and to me. 
 
 Now fades the glimmering 
 landscape on the sight, 
 And all the air a solemn 
 
 stillness holds, 
 Save where the beetle wheels 
 
 his droning flight, 
 And drowsy tinklings lull 
 the distant folds: 
 
This is to announce the Roy croft Edition of 
 
 G RAY S ELEGY 
 
 WRITTEN IN A COUNTRY CHURCHYARD 
 
 flPPOSIT E this is a page from the Roycroft 
 Edition of Gray* 1 * Elegy. There may have been 
 better, more unique, and more artistic books than 
 this printed in America, but we do not just re 
 member what they are. The sample page shown 
 does not reveal the beauty of the book, for of 
 course it is not hand-illumined, and the paper is 
 not equal to that used in the book. It just kind 
 of gives you a chance to let your inward eye be 
 hold the wondrous beauty of a book, which might 
 have been made in heaven, to use the language 
 of Charles Lamb. 
 
 The volume contains twelve different special 
 border designs, all hand-illumined. Bound in 
 limp chamois, silk lined. Very suitable for a wed 
 ding or anniversary present. 
 Price of the book is Three Dollars, sent to the 
 Faithful on suspicion. 
 
 THE ROTCROFTERS 
 
 EAST AURORA, NEW YORK 
 
List of Books ^ 
 
 for sale at our Shop 5 
 
 1 y|v* 
 = 1 1 
 
 Below is a list of books, some of which have al 
 most disappeared from mortal view. The volumes 
 are all bound roycroftie, and are offered to the Dis 
 cerning at the prices quoted. The Roycrofters are 
 always glad to send their wares for inspection. 
 Therefore, no matter where you reside, drop us a 
 postal saying what books you would like to see, 
 and they will go forward at once. 
 
 Aucassin and Nicolete, j 
 
 52.00 
 
 Story of a Passion, $2.00 
 
 Will o the Mill, 
 
 2.OO 
 
 Golden River, 
 
 2.00 
 
 Old John Burroughs, 
 
 2.OO 
 
 Christmas Eve, 
 
 2.OO 
 
 A Christmas Carol, 
 
 2.00 
 
 Self-Reliance, 
 
 2.00 
 
 Poe s Poems, 
 
 2.50 
 
 Maud, 
 
 2.OO 
 
 Rubaiyat, 
 
 5.00 
 
 Dreams, 
 
 5.00 
 
 Contemplations, 
 
 5.00 
 
 Hamlet, 
 
 5.00 
 
 Garcia and Thirteen, 
 
 2.OO 
 
 Lodging for the Night, 
 
 2.OO 
 
 Little Journeys, accord 
 
 
 Philistine, Vols. XI to 
 
 
 ing to binding, $2, $3 & 
 
 5.00 
 
 XVI, inclusive, each, 
 
 1. 00 
 
 The Roycrofters 
 
 r 
 
TO THE HOMES OF EMINENT ORATORS 
 
 Vol. XIII. AUGUST, 1903. No. 2 
 
 By ELBERT HUBBARD 
 
 Single Copies, 25 cents By the Year, $3.00 
 
LITTLE JOURNEYS 
 
 TO THE^HOMES OF 
 
 EMINENT ORATORS 
 
 By ELBERT HUBBARD 
 
 SUBJECTS AS FOLLOWS: 
 
 1 Pericles 7 Marat 
 
 2 Mark Antony 8 Robert Ingersoll 
 
 3 Savonarola 9 Patrick Henry 
 
 4 Martin Luther 10 Thomas Starr King 
 
 5 Edmund Burke n Henry Ward Beecher 
 
 6 William Pitt 12 Wendell Phillips 
 
 One booklet a month will be issued as usual) begin 
 ning on January rst. 
 
 The LITTLE JOURNEYS for 1903 will be strictly 
 de luxe in form and workmanship. The type will be a 
 new font of antique blackface ; the initials designed 
 especially for this work; a frontispiece portrait from 
 *the original drawing made at our Shop. The booklets 
 will be stitched by hand with silk. 
 The price 25 cents each, or. $3.00 for the year. 
 
 Address THE ROYCROFTERS at their 
 Shop, which is at East Aurora, New York 
 
 Entered at the postoffice at East Aurora, New York, for transmission 
 as second-class mail matter. Copyright, 1902, by Elbert Hubbard 
 
Little 
 pounneys 
 
 (To the Homes ot 
 
 EMINENT 
 ORATORS 
 
 Written by Elbent 
 Hubband & done 
 into a Book by the 
 Roycif of tens at the 
 Shop, ipbicb is in 
 East Jtui*ot*a, Heio 
 Yonk, ft. D. 1903 
 
T OVE is the only bow on life s dark cloud. It is the morning and 
 ^ f the evening star. It shines upon the babe, and sheds its radiance 
 on the quiet tomb. It is the Mother of Art, inspirer of poet, patriot 
 and philosopher. It is the air and light to tired souls builder of every 
 home, kindler of every fire on every hearth. It was the first to dream 
 of immortality. It fills the world with melody for music is the voice 
 of love. Love is the magician, the enchanter that changes worthless 
 things to joy, and makes right royal kings and queens of common 
 clay. It is the perfume of that wondrous flower, the heart, and with 
 out that sacred passion, that divine swoon, we are less than beasts ; 
 but with it, earth is heaven and we are gods. 
 
Robert Ingersoll 
 
ROBERT INGERSOLL 23 
 
 |E was three years old, was Robert Inger- 
 soll. There was a baby boy one year 
 old, Ebon by name, then there was 
 John, five years, and two elder sisters. 
 Q Little Robert wore a red linsey- 
 woolsey dress, and was a restless, active 
 youngster with a big head, a round face 
 and a pug nose. No one ever asked, 
 " What is it ? "there was " boy " writ 
 ten large in every baby action, and ev 
 ery feature from chubby bare feet to the 
 two crowns of his close-cropped tow 
 head. 
 
 It was a morning in January, and the 
 snow lay smooth and white over all 
 those York State hills. The winter sun 
 sent long gleams of light through the 
 frost covered panes upon which the 
 children were trying to draw pictures. 
 Visitors began to arrive visitors in stiff 
 Sunday clothes, altho it was n t Sunday. 
 There were aunts, and uncles, and cous 
 ins, and then just neighbors. They filled 
 the little house full. Some of the men 
 went out and split wood and brought in 
 big armfuls and piled it in the corner. 
 They moved on tiptoe and talked in 
 whispers. And now and then they would 
 walk softly into the little parlor by twos 
 
24 ROBERT INGERSOLL 
 
 and threes and close the door after them. Q This par 
 lor was always a forbidden place to the children on 
 Sunday afternoons only were they allowed to go in 
 there, or on prayer meeting night. 
 
 In this parlor were six hair-cloth chairs and a sofa to 
 match. In the center was a little marble-top table, and 
 on it were two red books and a blue one. On the man 
 tel was a plaster-of-Paris cat at one end and a bunch 
 of crystallized flowers at the other. There was a 
 "what-not" in the corner covered with little shells 
 and filled with strange and wonderful things. There 
 was a " store " carpet, bright red. It was a very beau 
 tiful room, and to look into it was a great privilege. 
 Q Little Robert had tried several times to enter the 
 parlor this cold winter morning, but each time he had 
 been thrust back. Finally he clung to the leg of a tall 
 man, and was safely inside. It was very cold one of 
 the windows was open ! He looked about with won 
 dering baby eyes to see what the people wanted to go 
 in there for ! 
 
 On two of the hair-cloth chairs rested a coffin. The 
 baby hands clutched the side he drew himself up on 
 tiptoe and looked down at the still, white face the 
 face of his mother. Her hands were crossed just so, 
 and in her fingers was a spray of flowers he recog 
 nized them as the flowers she had always worn on her 
 Sunday bonnet a rusty black bonnet not real flow 
 ers, just " made " flowers. 
 But why was she so quiet ? He had never seen her 
 
ROBERT INGERSOLL 25 
 
 hands that way before those hands were always 
 
 busy: knitting, sewing, cooking, weaving, scrubbing, 
 
 washing ! 
 
 "Mamma! Mamma!" called the boy. 
 
 "Hush, little boy, hush! Your Mamma is dead," said 
 
 the tall man, and he lifted the boy in his arms and 
 
 carried him from the room. 
 
 Out in the kitchen, in a crib in the corner, lay the 
 
 " Other Baby," and thither little Robert made his way. 
 
 He patted the sleeping baby brother, and called aloud 
 
 in lisping words, "Wake up, Baby, your Mamma is 
 
 dead!" 
 
 And the baby in the crib knew quite as much about it 
 
 as the toddler in the linsey-woolsey dress, and the 
 
 toddler knew as much about death as we do to-day. 
 
 This wee youngster kept thinking how good it was 
 
 that Mamma could have such a nice rest the first 
 
 rest she had ever known and just lie there in the 
 
 beautiful room and hold her flowers ! 
 
 Fifty years passes. These children, grown to man 
 hood, are again together. One, his work done, is at 
 rest. Standing by his bier, the other voices these 
 deathless words: 
 
 "Life is a narrow vale between the cold and barren 
 peaks of two eternities. "We strive in vain to look be 
 yond the heights. "We call aloud, and the only answer 
 is the echo of our wailing cry. From the voiceless lips 
 of the unreplying dead there comes no word ; but in 
 
f6 ROBERT INGERSOLL 
 
 the night of death, hope sees a star and listening love 
 can hear the rustle of a wing. 
 
 " He who sleeps here, when dying, mistaking the ap 
 proach of death for the return of health, whispered 
 with his latest breath, I am better now. Let us be 
 lieve, in spite of doubts and dogmas, of fears and tears, 
 that these dear words are true of all the countless 
 dead." 
 
 THE mother of Ingersoll was a Livingston a 
 Livingston of right royal lineage, tracing to 
 that famous family of Revolutionary fame. To 
 a great degree she gave up family and social position 
 to become the wife of Reverend John Ingersoll of Ver 
 mont, a theolog from the Academy at Bennington. 
 He was young and full of zeal he was called " a pow 
 erful preacher." That he was a man of much strength 
 of intellect, there is ample proof. He did his duty, said 
 his say, called sinners to repentance and told what 
 would be their fate if they did not accept salvation. 
 His desire was to do good, and therefore he warned 
 men against the wrath to come. He was an educated 
 man, and all of his beliefs and most of his ideas were 
 gathered and gleaned from his college professors and 
 Jonathan Edwards. 
 
 He loved his beautiful wife and she loved him. She 
 loved him just as all good women love, with a com 
 plete abandon with heart, mind and strength. He at 
 
ROBERT INGERSOLL 27 
 
 first had periods of such abandon, too, but his con 
 science soon made him recoil from an affection of 
 which God might be jealous. He believed that a man 
 should forsake father, mother, wife and child in order 
 to follow duty and duty to him was the thing we 
 did n t want to do. That which was pleasant was not 
 wholly good. And so he strove to thrust from him all 
 earthly affections, and to love God alone. Not only 
 this, but he strove to make others love God. He 
 warned his family against the pride and pomp of the 
 world, and the family income being something under 
 four hundred dollars, they observed his edict. 
 Life was a warfare the devil constantly lay in wait 
 we must resist. This man hated evil he hated evil 
 more than he loved the good. His wife loved the good 
 more than she hated evil, and he chided her in love. 
 She sought to explain her position. He was amazed at 
 her temerity what right had a woman to think what 
 right had any one to think ! 
 He prayed for her. 
 
 And soon she grew to keep her thoughts to herself. 
 Sometimes she would write them out, and then destroy 
 them before any eyes but her own could read. Once 
 she went to a neighbor s and saw Paine s "Age of 
 Reason." She peeped into its pages by stealth, and 
 then put it quickly away. The next day she went back 
 and read some more, and among other things she read 
 was this, "To live a life of love and usefulness to 
 benefit others must bring its due reward, regardless 
 
28 ROBERT INGERSOLL 
 
 of belief." QShe thought about it more and more and 
 wondered really if God could and would damn a per 
 son who just went ahead and did the best he could. 
 She wanted to ask her husband about it to talk it 
 over with him in the evening but she dare not. She 
 knew too well what his answer would be for her even 
 to think such thoughts was a sin. And so she just de 
 cided she would keep her thoughts to herself, and be 
 a dutiful wife, and help her husband in his pastoral 
 work as a minister s wife should. 
 
 But her proud spirit began to droop, she ceased to 
 sing at her work, her face grew wan, yellow and sad. 
 Yet still she worked there were no servants to dis 
 tress her and when her own work was done she 
 went out among the neighbors and helped them she 
 cared for the sick, the infirm, she dressed the new 
 born babe, and closed the eyes of the dying. 
 That this woman had a thirst for liberty, and the 
 larger life, is shown in that she herself prepared and 
 presented a memorial to the President of the United 
 States praying that slavery be abolished. So far as I 
 know, this was the first petition ever prepared in 
 America on the subject by a woman. 
 This minister s family rarely remained over two years 
 in a place. At first they were received with loving 
 arms, and there were donation parties where cider 
 was spilled on the floors, doughnuts ground into the 
 carpets, and several hair-cloth chairs hopelessly 
 wrecked. But the larder was filled and there was 
 
ROBERT INGERSOLL 29 
 
 much good cheer. Q I believe I said that the Rev. John 
 Ingersoll was a powerful preacher he was so power 
 ful he quickly made enemies. He told men of their 
 weaknesses in phrase so pointed that necks would be 
 craned to see how certain delinquents took their medi 
 cine. Then some would get up and tramp out during 
 the sermon in high dudgeon. These disaffected ones 
 would influence others contributions grew less, do 
 nations ceased, and just as a matter of bread and but 
 ter a new " call" would be angled for, and the parson s 
 family would pack up helped by the faction that loved 
 them, and the one that did n t. Good-byes were said, 
 blessings given or the reverse and the jokers would 
 say, "A change of pastors makes fat calves." 
 At one time the Rev. John Ingersoll tried to start an 
 independent church in New York City. For a year he 
 preached every Sunday at the old Lyceum Theatre, 
 and here it was on the stage of the theatre, in 1834, 
 that Robert G. Ingersoll was baptized. 
 But the New York venture failed starved out, was 
 the verdict, and a country parish extending a call, it 
 was gladly accepted. 
 
 Such a life, to such a woman, was particularly wear 
 ing. But Mrs. Ingersoll kept right at her work, always 
 doing for others, until there came a day when kind 
 neighbors came in and cared for her, looked after her 
 household, attending this stricken mother tired out 
 and old at thirty-one, unaware that she had blessed 
 the world by giving to it a man-child who was to make 
 
so ROBERT INGERSOLL 
 
 an epoch. QThe watchers one night straightened the 
 stiffening limbs, clothed the body in the gown that had 
 been her wedding dress, and folded the calloused fin 
 gers over the spray of flowers. Q " Hush, little boy 
 your Mamma is dead ! " said the tall man, as he lifted 
 the child and carried him from the room. 
 
 FROM the sleepy little village of Dresden, Yates 
 County, New York, seven miles from Penn Yan, 
 where Robert Ingersoll was born, to his niche 
 in the Temple of Fame, was a zigzag journey. But 
 that is Nature s plan we make head by tacking. And 
 as the years go by, more and more, we see the line of 
 Ingersoll slife stretching itself straight. Every change 
 to him meant progress. Success is a question of temper 
 ament it is all a matter of the red corpuscle. Ingersoll 
 was a success happy, exuberant, joying in life, rev 
 eling in existence, he marched to the front in every 
 
 As a boy he was so full of life that he very often did the 
 wrong thing. And I have no doubt but that wherever 
 he went he helped hold good the precedents that 
 preachers boys are not especially angelic. For in 
 stance, we have it on good authority that Bob, aged 
 fourteen, once climbed into the belfry of a church and 
 removed the clapper, so that the sexton thought the 
 bell was bewitched. At another time he placed a 
 washtub over the top of a chimney where a prayer 
 
ROBERT INGERSQLL 31 
 
 meeting was in progress, and the smoke broke up the 
 meeting and gave the good people a foretaste of the 
 place they believed in. In these stories, told to prove 
 his depravity, Bob was always climbing somewhere 
 belfries, steeples, housetops, trees, verandas, barn- 
 roofs, bridges. But I have noticed that youngsters 
 given to the climbing habit usually do something when 
 they grow up. 
 
 For these climbing pranks Robert and Ebon were 
 duly reproved with a stout strap that hung behind the 
 kitchen door. Whether the parsonage was in New 
 York, Pennsylvania, Ohio, or Illinois and it dodged all 
 over these states the strap always traveled, too. It 
 never got lost. It need not be said that the Rev. 
 John Ingersoll was cruel or abusive, not at all, he 
 just believed with Solomon that to spare the rod was 
 to spoil the child. He loved his children, and if a boy 
 could be saved by so simple a means as "strap oil," 
 he was not the man to shirk his duty. He was neither 
 better nor worse than the average preacher of his day. 
 No doubt, too, the poverty and constant misunder 
 standings with congregations led to much irritability 
 it is hard to be amiable on half rations. 
 When a step-mother finally appeared upon the scene, 
 there was more trouble for the children. She was a 
 worthy woman and meant to be kind, but her heart 
 was n t big enough to love boys who carried live mice 
 in their pockets and turned turtles loose in the pantry. 
 QSo we find Bob and his brother bundled off to his 
 
32 ROBERT INGERSOLL 
 
 Grandfather Livingston s in St. Lawrence County, 
 New York. Here Bob got his first real educational 
 advantages. The old man seems to have been a sort 
 of "Foxy Grandpa": he played, romped, read and 
 studied with the boys and possibly neutralized some 
 of the discipline they had received. 
 Of his childhood days Robert Ingersoll very rarely 
 spoke. There was too much bitterness and disappoint 
 ment in it all, but it is curious to note that when he 
 did speak of his boyhood, it was always something 
 that happened at " Grandfather Livingston s." Finally 
 the old Grandpa got to thinking so much of the boys 
 that he wanted to legally adopt them, and then we 
 find their father taking alarm and bringing them back 
 to the parsonage, which was then at Elyria, Ohio. 
 The boys worked at odd jobs, on farms in summer, 
 clerking in country stores, driving stage and be it said 
 to the credit of their father, he allowed them to keep 
 the money they made. Education comes through doing 
 things, making things, going without things, taking 
 care of yourself, talking about things, and when Rob 
 ert was seventeen he had education enough to teach a 
 "Deestrick School" in Illinois. 
 
 To teach is a good way to get an education. If you 
 want to know all about a subject, write a book on it, 
 a wise man has said. If you wish to know all about 
 things, start in and teach them to others. 
 Bob was eighteen big and strong, with a good nature 
 and an enthusiasm that had no limit. There were spell- 
 
ROBERT INGERSOLL 33 
 
 ing-bees in his school, and a debating society, that had 
 impromptu rehearsals every night at the grocery. 
 Country people are prone to " argufying" the greater 
 and more weighty the question the more ready are 
 the bucolic Solons to engage with it. And it is all 
 education to the youth who listens and takes part 
 who has the receptive mind. 
 
 This love of argument and contention among country 
 people finds vent in lawsuits. Pigs break into a man s 
 garden and root up the potatoes, and straightway the 
 owner of the potatoes "has the law" on the owner of 
 the pigs. This strife is urged on by kind neighbors who 
 take sides, and by the "setters" at the store, who 
 fire the litigants on to unseemliness. Local attorneys 
 are engaged and the trial takes place at the railroad 
 station, or in the school house on Saturday. Everybody 
 has opinions, and over-rules the "jedge" next day, or 
 not, as the case may be. 
 
 This petty strife may seem absurd to us, but it is all a 
 part of the Spirit of the Hive, as Maeterlinck would say. 
 It is better than dead level dumbness better than the 
 subjection of the peasantry of Europe. These pioneers 
 settle their own disputes. It makes them think, and a 
 few at least are getting an education. This is the cradle 
 in which statesmen are rocked. (J And so it happened 
 that no one was surprised when in the year 1853, there 
 was a sign tacked up over a grocery in Shawneetown, 
 Illinois, and the sign read thus : "R.G. &E. C. Inger- 
 soll, Attorneys and Counselors at Law." 
 
34 _ ROBERT INGERSOLL 
 
 SHAWNEETOWN, Illinois, was once the pride 
 and pet of Egypt. It was larger than Chicago, 
 and doubtless it would have become the capitol 
 of the state had it been called Shawnee City. But the 
 name was against it, and dry rot set in. And so 
 to-day Shawneetown has the same number of inhabit 
 ants that it had in 1855, and in Shawneetown are 
 various citizens who boast that the place has held its 
 
 Robert Ingersoll had won a case for a certain steam 
 boat captain, and in gratitude the counsel had been 
 invited by his client to go on an excursion to Peoria, 
 the head of navigation on the Illinois River. The lawyer 
 took the trip, and duly reached Peoria after many 
 hairbreadth scapes on the imminently deadly sand-bar. 
 But a week must be spent at Peoria while the boat was 
 reloading for her return trip. 
 
 There was a railroad war on in Peoria. The town had 
 one railroad, which some citizens said was enough for 
 any place; others wanted the new railroad. 
 Whether the new company should be granted certain 
 terminal facilities that was the question. The route 
 was surveyed, but the company was forbidden to lay 
 its tracks until the people said "Aye." 
 So there the matter rested when Robert Ingersoll was 
 waiting for the stern-wheeler to reload. The captain 
 of the craft had meanwhile circulated reports about 
 the eloquence and legal ability of his star passenger. 
 These reports coming to the ears of the manager of 
 
ROBERT INGERSOLL 35 
 
 the new railroad, he sought out the visiting lawyer 
 and advised with him. 
 
 Railroad Law is a new thing, not quite so new as the 
 Law of the Bicycle, or the Statutes concerning Auto- 
 mobiling, but older still than the Legal Precedents of 
 the Aeromotor. Railroad Law is an evolution, and the 
 Railroad Lawyer is a by-product: what Mr. Mantinelli 
 would call a demnition product. 
 
 It was a railroad that gave Robert Ingersoll his first 
 fee in Peoria. The man was only twenty-three, but 
 semi-pioneer life makes men early, and Robert Inger 
 soll stood first in war and first in peace among the 
 legal lights of Shawneetown. His size made amends 
 for his cherubic face, and the insignificant nose was 
 more than balanced by the forceful jaw. The young 
 man was a veritable Greek in form, and his bubbling 
 wit and ready speech on any theme made him a draw 
 ing card at the political barbecue. 
 
 " Bob " at this time did n t know much about railroads 
 there was no railroad in Shawneetown but he was 
 an expert on barbecues. A barbecue is a gathering 
 where a whole ox is roasted and where there is much 
 hard cider and effervescent eloquence. Bob would 
 speak to the people about the advantages of the new 
 railroad ; and the opposition could answer if they 
 wished. Pioneers are always ready for a picnic they 
 delight in speeches they dote on argument and 
 wordy warfare. The barbecue was to be across the 
 river on Saturday afternoon. 
 
36 ROBERT INGERSOLL 
 
 The whole city quit business to go to the barbecue 
 and hear the speeches. 
 
 Bob made the first address. He spoke for two hours 
 about everything and anything he told stories, and 
 dealt in love, life, death, politics and farming all but 
 railroading. The crowd was delighted cheers filled 
 the air <r & 
 
 When the opposition got up to speak and brought for 
 ward its profound reasons and heavy logic, most 
 everybody adjourned to the tables to eat and drink. 
 Q Finally there came rumors that something was go 
 ing on across the river. The opposition grew nervous 
 and started to go home, but in some mysterious way 
 the two ferry boats were tied up on the farther bank, 
 and were deaf and blind to signals. 
 It was well after dark before the people reached home, 
 and when they got up the next morning they found the 
 new railroad had a full mile of track down and engines 
 were puffing at their doors. 
 
 Bob made another speech in the public square, and 
 cautioned everybody to be law-abiding. The second 
 railroad had arrived it was a good thing it meant 
 wealth, prosperity and happiness for everybody. And 
 even if it did n t, it was here and could not be removed 
 excepting by legal means. And we must all be law- 
 abiding citizens let the matter be determined by the 
 courts. Then there were a few funny stories, and 
 cheers were given for the speaker. 
 
ROBERT INGERSOLL, 37 
 
 On the next trip of the little stenuwheeler the young 
 lawyer and his brother arrived. They had n t much 
 baggage, but they carried a tin sign that they proceeded 
 to tack up over a store on Adams Street. It read thus: 
 " R. G. & E. C. Ingersoll, Attorneys and Counselors at 
 Law." And there the sign was to remain for twenty- 
 five years. 
 
 AT Peoria, the Ingersoll Brothers did not have 
 to wait long for clients. Ebon was the coun 
 selor, Robert the pleader, and some still have 
 it that Ebon was the stronger, just as we hear that 
 Ezekiel Webster was a more capable man than Dan 
 iel which was probably the fact. 
 
 The Ingersolls had not been long at Peoria before 
 Robert had a case at Groveland, a town only a few 
 miles away, and a place which, like Shawneetown, 
 has held its own. 
 
 The issue was the same old classic hogs had rooted 
 up the man s garden, and then the hogs had been im 
 pounded. This time there was tragedy, for before the 
 hogs were released the owner was killed. 
 The people for miles had come to town to hear the 
 eloquent young lawyer from Peoria. The taverns were 
 crowded, and not having engaged a room, the attorney 
 for the defense was put to straits to find a place in 
 which to sleep. In this extremity Squire Parker, the 
 first citizen of the town, invited young Ingersoll to 
 
38 ROBERT INGERSOLL 
 
 his house. Q Parker was a character in that neck of 
 the woods he was an "infidel," and a terror to all 
 the clergy round about. And strange enough or not 
 his wife believed exactly as he did, and so did their 
 daughter Eva, a beautiful girl of nineteen. But Squire 
 Parker got into no argument with his guest their be 
 lief was the same. Probably we would now call the 
 Parkers simply radical Unitarians. Their kinsman, 
 Theodore Parker, expressed their faith, and they had 
 no more use for a "personal devil" than he had. The 
 courage of the young woman in stating her religious 
 views had almost made her an outcast in the village, 
 and here she was saying the same things in Groveland 
 that Robert was saying in Peoria. She was the first 
 woman he ever knew who had ideas. 
 It was one o clock before he went to bed that night 
 his head was in a whirl. It was a wonder he did n t 
 lose his case the next day, but he did n t. 
 He cleared his client and won a bride. 
 In a few months Robert Ingersoll and Eva Parker 
 were married. 
 
 Never were man and woman more perfectly mated 
 than this couple. And how much the world owes to 
 her sustaining love and unfaltering faith, we cannot 
 compute ; but my opinion is that if it had not been for 
 Eva Parker twice a daughter of the Revolution, 
 whose ancestors fought side by side with the Living 
 stons we should never have heard of Robert Inger 
 soll as the maker of an epoch. It is love that makes 
 
ROBERT INGERSOLL 39 
 
 the world go round and it is love that makes the 
 orator and fearless thinker, no less than poet, painter 
 and musician. 
 
 No man liveth unto himself alone: we demand the 
 approval and approbation of another : we write and 
 speak for some One; and our thought coming back 
 from this One approved, gives courage and that bold 
 determination which carries conviction home. Before 
 the world believes in us we must believe in ourselves, 
 and before we fully believe in ourselves this some 
 One must believe in us. Eva Parker believed in Robert 
 Ingersoll, and it was her love and faith that made him 
 believe in himself and caused him to fling reasons into 
 the face of hypocrisy and shower with sarcasm and 
 ridicule the savage and senseless superstitions that 
 paraded themselves as divine. 
 
 Wendell Phillips believed in himself because Ann 
 never doubted him. Without Ann he would not have 
 had the courage to face that twenty years course of 
 mobs. If it had ever occurred to him that the mob was 
 right he would have gone down in darkness and de 
 feat, but with Ann such a suspicion was not possible. 
 He pitted Ann s faith against the prejudice of centuries 
 two with God are a majority. 
 
 It was Eva s faith that sustained Robert. In those 
 first years of lecturing she always accompanied him, 
 and at his lectures sat on the stage in the wings and 
 gloried in his success. He did not need her to protect 
 him from the mob, but he needed her to protect him 
 
40 _ ROBERT INGERSOLL 
 
 from himself. It is only perfect love that casteth out 
 fear. 
 
 THERE is a little book called, "Ingersoll as He 
 Is," which is being circulated by some earnest 
 advocates of truth. 
 
 The volume is a vindication, a refutation and an apol 
 ogy. It takes up a goodly list of zealous calumniators 
 and cheerful prevaricators and tacks their pelts on 
 the barn-door of obliquity. 
 
 That Ingersoll won the distinction of being more 
 grossly misrepresented than any man of his time, 
 there is no doubt. This was to his advantage he was 
 advertised by his rabid enemies no less than by his 
 loving friends. But his good friends who are putting 
 out this vindication should cultivate faith, and know 
 that there is a God, or Something, who looks after the 
 lies and the liars we need n t. 
 
 A big man should never be cheapened by a defense. 
 Life is its own excuse for being, and every life is its 
 own apology. Silence is better than wordy refutation. 
 People who want to believe the falsehoods told of this 
 man, or any other, will continue to believe them until 
 the crack o doom. 
 
 Most accusations contain a certain basis of truth, but 
 they may be no less libels on that account. One zeal 
 ous advocate, intent on loving his supposed enemy, 
 printed a thrilling story about Ingersoll s being taken 
 
ROBERT INGERSOLL 41 
 
 prisoner during the war, while taking refuge in a pig 
 pen. To this some of Bob s friends interposed a fierce 
 rejoinder declaring that Bob stood like Falstaff at 
 Gads Hill and fought the rogues in buckram to a 
 standstill &* jf 
 
 Heaven forfend me from my friends I can withstand 
 mine enemies alone ! 
 
 I am quite ready to believe that Bob, being attacked 
 by an overwhelming force, suddenly bethought him 
 of an engagement, and made a swift run for safety. 
 The impeccable man who has never done a cowardly 
 thing, nor a mean thing, is no kinsman of mine ! The 
 saintly hero who has not had his heels run away with 
 his head, and sought safety in a friendly pig-pen aye ! 
 and filled his belly with the husks that the swine did 
 eat has dropped something out of his life that he 
 will have to go back for and pick up in another incar 
 nation. We love men for their limitations and weak 
 nesses, no less than their virtues. A fault may bring 
 a man very close to us. Have we, too, not sought 
 safety in pig-pens ! The people who taunt other 
 people with having taken temporary refuge in a pig 
 pen are usually those who live in pig-pens the whole 
 year round &* <f 
 
 The one time in the life of Savonarola when he comes 
 nearest to us is when his tortured flesh wrenched from 
 his spirit a recantation. And who can forget that cry 
 of Calvary, "My God, my God! Why hast thou for 
 saken me!" That call for help coming to us across 
 
42 ROBERT INGERSOLL 
 
 twenty centuries, makes the man, indeed, our Elder 
 Brother <r 4T 
 
 And let it here be stated that even Bob s bitterest foe 
 never declared that the man was a coward by nature, 
 nor that the business of his life was hiding in pig 
 pens. The incident named was exceptional and there 
 fore noteworthy; let us admit it, at least not worry 
 ourselves into a passion denying it. Let us also stipu 
 late the truth that Bob could never quite overcome 
 the temptation to take an unfair advantage of his op 
 ponent in an argument. He laid the fools by the heels 
 and suddenly, gainst all the rules of either Robertson 
 or Queensbury. 
 
 To go after the prevaricators, and track them to their 
 holes is to make much of little, and lift the liars into 
 the realm of equals. This story of the pig-pen I never 
 heard of until Ingersoll s friends denied it in a book. 
 QJust one instance to show how trifles light as air 
 are to the zealous confirmation strong as holy writ. 
 In April, 1894, Ingersoll lectured at Utica, New York. 
 The following Sunday a local clergyman denounced the 
 lecturer as a sensualist, a gourmand one totally in 
 different to decency and the feelings and rights of 
 others. Then the preacher said, "At breakfast in this 
 city last Thursday, Ingersoll ordered everything on 
 the bill of fare, and then insulted and roundly abused 
 the waiter-girl because she did not bring things that 
 were not in the hotel." 
 I happened to be present at that meal. It was an 
 
ROBERT INGERSOLL, 43 
 
 Dearly train breakfast," and the bill of fare for the 
 day had not been printed. The girl came in, and 
 standing at the Colonel s elbow, in genuine waiter- 
 girl style, mumbled this: "Ham and eggs, mutton 
 chops, beefsteak, breakfast bacon, codfish balls and 
 buckwheat cakes." 
 
 And Bob solemnly said: "Ham and eggs, mutton 
 chops, beefsteak, breakfast bacon, codfish balls and 
 buckwheat cakes." 
 
 In amazement the girl gasped, "What?" And then 
 Bob went over it backward: " Buckwheat cakes, cod 
 fish balls, breakfast bacon, beefsteak, mutton chops, 
 and ham and eggs." 
 
 This memory test raised a laugh that sent a shout of 
 mirth all through the room, in which even the girl 
 joined jf & 
 
 "Have n t you anything else, my dear," asked the 
 great man in a sort of disappointed way. 
 "I think we have tripe and pig s feet," said the girl. 
 Q" Bring a bushel," said Bob, "and say, tell the cook 
 I d like a dish of peacock tongues on the side." The 
 infinite good nature of it all caused another laugh 
 from everybody. 
 
 The girl brought everything ordered excepting the 
 peacock tongues, and this order supplied the lecturer 
 and his party of four. The waitress found a dollar bill 
 under Bob s plate, and the cook who stood in the 
 kitchen door and waved a big spoon, and called, 
 "Good-bye, Bob!" got another dollar for himself. 
 
44 ROBERT INGERSOLL 
 
 Cf Ingersoll carried mirth, and joy, and good cheer, and 
 radiated a feeling of plentitude wherever he went. He 
 was a royal liver and a royal spender. " If I had but a 
 dollar," he used to say, "I d spend it as though it 
 were a dry leaf, and I were the owner of an un 
 bounded forest." He maintained a pension list of 
 thirty persons or more for a decade, spent upwards 
 of forty thousand dollars a year, and while the for 
 tune he left for his wife and children was not large, 
 as men count things on Change, yet it is ample for 
 their ease and comfort. 
 
 His family always called him "Robert" with an al 
 most idolatrous flavor of tender love in the word. But 
 to the world who hated him and the world who loved 
 him, he was just plain "Bob." To trainmen, hack 
 drivers, and the great singers, poets and players, he 
 was "Bob." "Dignity is the mask behind which we 
 hide our ignorance." "When half a world calls a man 
 by a nickname, it is a patent to nobility small men 
 are never so honored. 
 
 "Good-bye, Bob," called the white aproned cook as 
 he stood in the kitchen door and waved his big spoon. 
 " Good-bye, Brother, and mind you get those peacock 
 tongues by the time I get back," answered Bob. 
 
ROBERT INGERSOLL 45 
 
 AS to Ingersoll s mental evolution we cannot do 
 better than to let him tell the story himself: 
 QLike the most of us, I was raised among 
 people who knew who were certain. They did not 
 reason or investigate. They had no doubts. They 
 knew they had the truth. In their creed there was no 
 guess no perhaps. They had a revelation from God. 
 They knew the beginning of things. They knew that 
 God commenced to create one Monday morning and 
 worked until Saturday night, four thousand and four 
 years before Christ. They knew that in the eternity 
 back of that morning, he had done nothing. They 
 knew that it took him six days to make the earth 
 all plants, all animals, all life, and all the globes that 
 wheel in space. They knew exactly what he did each 
 day and when he rested. They knew the origin, the 
 cause of evil, of all crime, of all disease and death. 
 QThey not only knew the beginning, but they knew 
 the end. They knew that life had one path and one 
 road. They knew that the path, grass-grown and 
 narrow, filled with thorns and nettles, infested with 
 vipers, wet with tears, stained by bleeding feet, led to 
 heaven, and that the road, broad and smooth, bor 
 dered with fruits and flowers, filled with laughter and 
 song, and all the happiness of human love, led straight 
 to hell. They knew that God was doing his best to 
 make you take the path and that the Devil used every 
 art to keep you in the road. 
 
 They knew that there was a perpetual battle waged 
 between the great Powers of good and evil for the 
 possession of human souls. They knew that many 
 centuries ago God had left his throne and had been 
 born a babe into this poor world that he had suffered 
 death for the sake of man for the sake of saving a 
 
46 ROBERT INGERSOLL 
 
 few. They also knew that the human heart was 
 utterly depraved, so that man by nature was in love 
 with wrong and hated God with all his might. 
 At the same time they knew that God created man in 
 his own image and was perfectly satisfied with his 
 work. They also knew that he had been thwarted by 
 the Devil who with wiles and lies had deceived the 
 first of human kind. They knew that in consequence 
 of that, God cursed the man and woman ; the man 
 with toil, the woman with slavery and pain, and both 
 with death ; and that he cursed the earth itself with 
 briars and thorns, brambles and thistles. All these 
 blessed things they knew. They knew too all that 
 God had done to purify and elevate the race. They 
 knew all about the Flood knew that God, with the 
 exception of eight, drowned all his children the old 
 and young the bowed patriarch and the dimpled 
 babe the young man and the merry maiden the 
 loving mother and the laughing child because his 
 mercy endureth forever. They knew too, that he 
 drowned the beasts and birds everything that walked 
 or crawled or flew because his loving kindness is 
 over all his works. They knew that God, for the pur 
 pose of civilizing his children, had devoured some 
 with earthquakes, destroyed some with storms of 
 fire, killed some with his lightnings, millions with 
 famine, with pestilence, and sacrificed countless 
 thousands upon the fields of war. They knew that it 
 was necessary to believe these things and to love 
 God. They knew that there could be no salvation ex 
 cept by faith, and through the atoning blood of Jesus 
 Christ <T *T 
 
 All who doubted or denied would be lost. To live a 
 moral and honest life to keep your contracts, to take 
 care of wife and child to make a happy home to be 
 
ROBERT INGERSOLL 47 
 
 a good citizen, a patriot, a just and thoughtful man, 
 was simply a respectable way of going to hell. 
 God did not reward men for being honest, generous 
 and brave, but for the act of faith without faith, all 
 the so-called virtues were sins and the men who 
 practiced these virtues, without faith, deserved to 
 suffer eternal pain. 
 
 All of these comforting and reasonable things were 
 taught by the ministers in their pulpits by teachers 
 in Sunday schools and by parents at home. The chil 
 dren were victims. They were assaulted in the cradle 
 in their mother s arms. Then, the schoolmaster 
 carried on the war against their natural sense, and 
 all the books they read were filled with the same im 
 possible truths. The poor children were helpless. The 
 atmosphere they breathed was filled with lies lies 
 that mingled with their blood. 
 
 In those days ministers depended on revivals to save 
 souls and reform the world. 
 
 In the winter, navigation having closed, business -was 
 mostly suspended. There were no railways and the 
 only means of communication were wagons and boats. 
 Generally the roads were so bad that the wagons 
 were laid up with the boats. There were no operas, 
 no theatres, no amusements except parties and balls. 
 The parties were regarded as worldly and the balls as 
 wicked. For real and virtuous enjoyment the good 
 people depended on revivals. 
 
 The sermons were mostly about the pains and agonies 
 of hell, the joys and ecstacies of heaven, salvation by 
 faith, and the efficacy of the atonement. The little 
 churches, in which the services were held, were 
 generally small, badly ventilated, and exceedingly 
 warm. The emotional sermons, the sad singing, the 
 hysterical amens, the hope of heaven, the fear of hell, 
 
48 ROBERT INGERSQLL 
 
 caused many to lose the little sense they had. They 
 became substantially insane. In this condition they 
 flocked to the "mourners bench" asked for the 
 prayers of the faithful had strange feelings, prayed 
 and wept and thought they had been "born again." 
 Then they would tell their experience how wicked 
 they had been how evil had been their thoughts, 
 their desires, & how good they had suddenly become. 
 QThey used to tell the story of an old woman who, in 
 telling her experience, said: "Before I was con 
 verted, before I gave my heart to God, I used to lie 
 and steal, but now, thanks to the grace and blood of 
 Jesus Christ, I have quit em both, in a great meas 
 ure." #- w 
 
 Of course all the people were not exactly of one mind. 
 There were some scoffers, and now and then, some 
 man had sense enough to laugh at the threats of 
 priests and make a jest of hell. Some would tell of 
 unbelievers who had lived and died in peace. 
 When I was a boy I heard them tell of an old farmer 
 in Vermont. He was dying. The minister was at his 
 bed-side asked him if he was a Christian if he was 
 prepared to die. The old man answered that he had 
 made no preparation, that he was not a Christian 
 that he had never done anything but work. The 
 preacher said that he could give him no hope unless 
 he had faith in Christ, and that if he had no faith his 
 soul would certainly be lost. 
 
 The old man was not frightened. He was perfectly 
 calm. In a weak and broken voice he said: "Mr. 
 Preacher, I suppose you noticed my farm. My wife 
 and I came here more than fifty years ago. We were 
 just married. It was a forest then and the land was 
 covered with stones. I cut down the trees, burned the 
 logs, picked up the stones and laid the walls. My wife 
 
ROBERT INGERSOLL 49 
 
 spun and wove and worked every moment. We raised 
 and educated our children denied ourselves. During 
 all these years my wife never had a good dress, or a 
 decent bonnet. I never had a good suit of clothes. "We 
 lived on the plainest food. Our hands, our bodies, are 
 deformed by toil. We never had a vacation. We loved 
 each other and the children. That is the only luxury 
 we ever had. Now, I am about to die and you ask me 
 if I am prepared. Mr. Preacher, I have no fear of the 
 future, no terror of any other world. There may be 
 such a place as hell but if there is, you never can 
 make me believe that it s any worse than old Ver 
 mont " & & 
 
 So they told of a man who compared himself with his 
 dog. "My dog," he said, "just barks and plays has 
 all he wants to eat. He never works has no trouble 
 about business. In a little while he dies, and that is 
 all. I work with all my strength. I have no time to 
 play. I have trouble every day. In a little while I will 
 die, and then I go to hell. I wish that I had been a 
 dog" #- #r 
 
 Well, while the cold weather lasted, while the snows 
 fell, the revival went on, but when the winter was 
 over, when the steamboat s whistle was heard, when 
 business started again, most of the converts "back 
 slid" and fell again into their old ways. But the next 
 winter they were on hand, ready to be " born again." 
 They formed a kind of stock company, playing the 
 same parts every winter and backsliding every spring. 
 Of The ministers, who preached at these revivals, 
 were in earnest. They were zealous and sincere. They 
 were not philosophers. To them science was the name 
 of a vague dread a dangerous enemy. They did not 
 know much, but they believed a great deal. To them 
 hell was a burning reality they could see the smoke 
 
5o ROBERT INGERSOLL 
 
 and flames. The Devil was no myth. He was an actual 
 person, a rival of God, an enemy of mankind. They 
 thought that the important business of this life was 
 to save your soul that all should resist and scorn the 
 pleasures of sense, and keep their eyes steadily fixed 
 on the golden gate of the New Jerusalem. They were 
 unbalanced, emotional, hysterical, bigoted, hateful, 
 loving, and insane. They really believed the Bible to 
 be the actual word of God a book without mistake 
 or contradiction. They called its cruelties, justice its 
 absurdities, mysteries its miracles, facts, and the 
 idiotic passages were regarded as profoundly spiritual. 
 They dwelt on the pangs, the regrets, the infinite 
 agonies of the lost, and showed how easily they could 
 be avoided, and how cheaply heaven could be ob 
 tained. They told their hearers to believe, to have 
 faith, to give their hearts to God, their sins to Christ, 
 who would bear their burdens and make their souls 
 as white as snow. 
 
 All this the ministers really believed. They were ab 
 solutely certain. In their minds the Devil had tried in 
 vain to sow the seeds of doubt. 
 
 I heard hundreds of these evangelical sermons heard 
 hundreds of the most fearful and vivid descriptions of 
 the tortures inflicted in hell, of the horrible state of 
 the lost. I supposed that what I heard was true and 
 yet I did not believe it. I said: "It is," and then I 
 thought: "It cannot be." 
 
 From my childhood I had heard read, and read the 
 Bible. Morning and evening the sacred volume was 
 opened and prayers were said. The Bible was my 
 first history, the Jews were the first people, and the 
 events narrated by Moses and the other inspired 
 writers, and those predicted by prophets were the all 
 important things. In other books were found the 
 
ROBERT INGERSOLL 51 
 
 thoughts and dreams of men, but in the Bible were 
 the sacred truths of God. 
 
 Yet in spite of my surroundings, of my education, I 
 had no love for God. He was so saving of mercy, so 
 extravagant in murder, so anxious to kill, so ready to 
 assassinate, that I hated him with all my heart. At 
 his command, babes were butchered, women violated, 
 and the white hair of trembling age stained with blood. 
 This God visited the people with pestilence filled the 
 houses and covered the streets with the dying and the 
 dead saw babes starving on the empty breasts of 
 pallid mothers, heard the sobs, saw the tears, the 
 sunken cheeks, the sightless eyes, the new-made 
 graves, and remained as pitiless as the pestilence. 
 QThis God withheld the rain caused the famine 
 saw the fierce eyes of hunger the wasted forms, the 
 white lips, saw mothers eating babes, and remained 
 ferocious as famine. 
 
 It seems to me impossible for a civilized man to love 
 or worship, or respect the God of the Old Testament. 
 A really civilized man, a really civilized woman, must 
 hold such a God in abhorrence and contempt. 
 But in the old days the good people justified Jehovah 
 in his treatment of the heathen. The wretches who 
 were murdered were idolaters and therefore unfit to 
 live & <& 
 
 According to the Bible, God had never revealed him 
 self to these people and he knew that without a reve 
 lation they could not know that he was the true God. 
 Whose fault was it then that they were heathen ? 
 The Christians said that God had the right to destroy 
 them because he created them. What did he create 
 them for? He knew when he made them that they 
 would be food for the sword. He knew that he would 
 have the pleasure of seeing them murdered. 
 
52 ROBERT INGERSOLL 
 
 As a last answer, as a final excuse, the worshipers of 
 Jehovah said that all these horrible things happened 
 under the "old dispensation" of unyielding law, and 
 absolute justice, but that now under the "new dis 
 pensation," all had been changed the sword of justice 
 had been sheathed and love enthroned. In the Old 
 Testament, they said, God is the judge but in the 
 New, Christ is the merciful. As a matter of fact, the 
 New Testament is infinitely worse than the Old. In 
 the Old there is no threat of eternal pain. Jehovah 
 had no eternal prison no everlasting fire. His hatred 
 ended at the grave. His revenge was satisfied when 
 his enemy was dead. 
 
 In the New Testament, death is not the end, but the 
 beginning of punishment that has no end. In the New 
 Testament the malice of God is infinite and the hunger 
 of his revenge eternal. 
 
 The orthodox God, when clothed in human flesh, told 
 his disciples not to resist evil, to love their enemies, 
 and when smitten on one cheek to turn the other, and 
 yet we are told that this same God, with the same 
 loving lips, uttered these heartless, these fiendish 
 words: " Depart ye cursed into everlasting fire, pre 
 pared for the Devil and his angels." 
 These are the words of " eternal love." 
 No human being has imagination enough to conceive 
 of this infinite horror. 
 
 All that the human race has suffered in war and want, 
 in pestilence and famine, in fire and flood, all the 
 pangs and pains of every disease and every death 
 all this is as nothing compared with the agonies to be 
 endured by one lost soul. 
 
 This is the consolation of the Christian religion. This 
 is the justice of God the mercy of Christ. 
 This frightful dogma, this infinite lie, made me the 
 
ROBERT INGERSQLL 53 
 
 implacable enemy of Christianity. The truth is that 
 this belief in eternal pain has been the real perse 
 cutor. It founded the Inquisition, forged the chains, 
 and furnished the fagots. It has darkened the lives of 
 many millions. It made the cradle as terrible as the 
 cofiin. It enslaved nations and shed the blood of 
 countless thousands. It sacrificed the wisest, the bra 
 vest and the best. It subverted the idea of justice, drove 
 mercy from the heart, changed men to fiends and 
 banished reason from the brain. 
 
 Like a venomous serpent it crawls and coils and 
 hisses in every orthodox creed. 
 
 It makes man an eternal victim and God an eternal 
 fiend. It is the one infinite horror. Every church in 
 which it is taught is a public curse. Every preacher 
 who teaches it is an enemy of mankind. Below this 
 Christian dogma, savagery cannot go. It is the infinite 
 of malice, hatred, and revenge. 
 
 Nothing could add to the horror of hell, except the 
 presence of its creator, God. 
 
 While I have life, as long as I draw breath, I shall 
 deny with all my strength, and hate with every drop 
 of my blood, this infinite lie. 
 
 Nothing gives me greater joy than to know that this 
 belief in eternal pain is growing weaker every day 
 that thousands of ministers are ashamed of it. It gives 
 me joy to know that Christians are becoming merci 
 ful, so merciful that the fires of hell are burning low 
 flickering, choked with ashes, destined in a few years 
 to die out forever. 
 
 For centuries Christendom was a mad-house. Popes, 
 cardinals, bishops, priests, monks and heretics were 
 all insane jf & 
 
 Only a few four or five in a century, were sound in 
 heart and brain. Only a few, in spite of the roar and 
 
54 ROBERT INGERSOLL 
 
 din, in spite of the savage cries, heard reason s voice. 
 Only a few in the wild rage of ignorance, fear and 
 zeal preserved the perfect calm that wisdom gives. 
 QWe have advanced. In a few years the Christians 
 will become humane and sensible enough to deny the 
 dogma that fills the endless years with pain. 
 
 THE world is getting better. We are gradually 
 growing honest, and men everywhere, even in 
 the pulpit, are acknowledging they do not know- 
 all about things. There was little hope for the race so 
 long as an individual was disgraced if he did not pre 
 tend to believe a thing at which his reason revolted. 
 We are simplifying life simplifying truth. The man 
 who serves his fellow men best is he who simplifies. 
 The learned man used to be the one who muddled 
 things, who scrambled thought, who took reason away, 
 and instead, thrust upon us faith, with a threat of 
 punishment if we did not accept it, and an offer of re 
 ward if we did. 
 
 We have now discovered that the so-called learned 
 man had no authority, either for his threat of punish 
 ment, or his offer of reward. Hypocrisy will not now 
 pass current, and sincerity, frozen stiff with fright, is 
 no longer legal tender for truth. In the frank acknowl 
 edgment of ignorance there is much promise. The man 
 who does not know, and is not afraid to say so, is in the 
 line of evolution. But for the head that is packed with 
 falsehood and the heart that is faint with fear, there is 
 
ROBERT INGERSOLL 55 
 
 no hope. That head must be unloaded of its lumber, 
 and the heart given courage before the march of prog 
 ress can begin. 
 
 Now let us be frank, and let us be honest, just for a 
 few moments. Let us acknowledge that this revolution 
 in thought that has occurred during the last twenty- 
 five years was brought about mainly by one individual. 
 The world was ripe for this man s utterance, other 
 wise he would not have gotten the speaker s eye. A 
 hundred years before we would have snuffed him out 
 in contumely and disgrace. But men listened to him 
 and paid high for the privilege. And those who hated 
 this man and feared him most, went, too, to listen, so as 
 to answer him and thereby keep the planet from swing 
 ing out of its orbit and sweeping on to destruction. 
 Wherever this man spoke, in towns and cities or coun 
 try, for weeks the air was heavy with the smoke of 
 rhetoric, and reasons, soggy and solid, and fuzzy logic 
 and muddy proof were dragged like siege guns to the 
 defense. 
 
 They dared the man to come back and fight it out. 
 The clouds were charged with challenges, and the 
 prophecy was made and made again that never in the 
 same place could this man go back and get a second 
 hearing. Yet he did go back year after year, and crowds 
 hung upon his utterances and laughed with him at the 
 scare-crow that had once filled their day dreams, made 
 the nights hideous, and the future black with terror. 
 Through his influence the tears of pity put out the 
 
56 ROBERT INGERSOLL 
 
 fires of hell; and he literally laughed the devil out of 
 court. This man, more than any other man of his 
 century, made the clergy free. He raised the standard 
 of intelligence in both pew and pulpit, and the preachers 
 who denounced him most, often were, and are, the 
 most benefited by his work. 
 This man was Robert G. Ingersoll. 
 On the urn that encloses his ashes should be these 
 words: LIBERATOR OF MEN. When he gave his 
 lecture on "The Gods" at Cooper Union, New York 
 City, in 1872, he fired a shot heard round the world. 
 Q It was the boldest, strongest, and most vivid utter 
 ance of the century. 
 
 At once it was recognized that the thinking world had 
 to deal with a man of power. Efforts were made in 
 dozens of places to bring statute law to bear upon him, 
 and the State of Delaware held her whipping post 
 in readiness for his benefit; but blasphemy enactments 
 and laws for the protection of the Unknown were 
 inoperative in his gracious presence. Ingersoll was a 
 hard hitter, but the splendid good nature of the man, 
 his freedom from all personal malice, and his unsullied 
 character saved him, in those early days, from the 
 violence that would surely have overtaken a smaller 
 person. 
 
 The people who now seek to disparage the name and 
 fame of Ingersoll dwell on the things he was not, and 
 give small credit for that which he was. 
 They demand infinity and perfection, not quite willing 
 
ROBERT INGERSOLL 57 
 
 yet to acknowledge that perfection has never been 
 incorporated in a single soul. 
 
 Let us acknowledge freely that Ingersoll was not a 
 pioneer in science. Let us admit, for argument s sake, 
 that Rousseau, Voltaire, Paine and Renan voiced every 
 argument that he put forth. Let us grant that he was 
 often the pleader, and that the lawyer habit of painting 
 his own side large, never quite forsook him, and that 
 he was swayed more by his feelings than by his intellect. 
 Let us further admit that in his own individual case 
 there was small evolution, and that for thirty years he 
 threshed the same straw. And these things being said 
 and admitted, nothing more in truth can be said against 
 the man. 
 
 But these points are neither to his discredit nor dis 
 grace. On them you cannot construct an indictment 
 they mark his limitations, that is all. 
 Ingersoll gave superstition such a jolt that the con 
 sensus of intelligence has counted it out. Ingersoll 
 did not destroy the good all that is vital and excellent 
 and worthy in religion we have yet, and in such 
 measure as it never existed before. 
 In every so-called "Orthodox" pulpit you can now 
 hear sermons calling upon men to manifest their religion 
 in their work; to show their love for God in their 
 attitude toward men ; to gain the kingdom of heaven 
 by having the kingdom of heaven in their own hearts. 
 C Ingersoll pleaded for the criminal, the weak, the 
 defenseless and the depraved. Our treatment toward all 
 
58 ROBERT INGERSOLL 
 
 these has changed marvelously within a decade. "When 
 we ceased to believe that God was going to damn folks, 
 we left off damning them ourselves. We think better 
 now of God and we think better of men and women. 
 Who dares now talk about the "hopelessly lost" ? 
 You cannot afford to indict a man who practiced every 
 so-called Christian virtue, simply because there was 
 a flaw or two in his "belief" the world has gotten 
 beyond that. Everybody now admits that Ingersoll 
 was quite as good a man as those who denounced him 
 most. His life was full of kind deeds and generous 
 acts, and his daily walk was quite as blameless as 
 the life of the average priest and preacher. 
 Those who seek to cry Ingersoll down reveal either 
 density or malice. He did a great and necessary work, 
 and did it so thoroughly and well that it will never 
 have to be done again. His mission was to liberalize 
 and to Christianize every church in Christendom ; and 
 no denomination, be its creed ever so ossified, stands 
 now where it stood before Ingersoll began his crusade. 
 He shamed men into sanity. 
 
 Ingersoll uttered in clarion tones what thousands of 
 men and women believed, but dared not voice. He 
 was the spokesman for many of the best thinkers of 
 his time. He abolished fear, gave courage in place of 
 cringing doubt, and lived what he believed was truth. 
 His was a brave, cheerful and kindly life. He was 
 loved most by those who knew him best, for in his 
 nature there was neither duplicity nor concealment. 
 
ROBERT INGERSOLL 
 
 59 
 
 He had nothing to hide. We know and acknowledge 
 the man s limitations, yet we realize his worth : his 
 influence in the cause of simplicity and honesty has 
 been priceless. 
 
 The dust of conflict has not yet settled ; prejudice 
 still is in the air, but time, the great adjuster, will 
 give Ingersoll his due. The history of America s 
 thought evolution can never be written and the name 
 of Ingersoll left out. In his own splendid personality 
 he had no rivals, no competitors. He stands alone ; and 
 no name in liberal thought can ever eclipse his. He pre 
 pared the way for the thinkers and the doers who 
 shall come after, and in insight surpass him, reaching 
 spiritual heights which he, perhaps, could never attain. 
 CJThis earth is a better place, and life and liberty are 
 safer because Robert G. Ingersoll lived. 
 The last words of Ingersoll were, by a strange coinci 
 dence, the dying words of his brother Ebon: "I am 
 better!" words of hope, words of assurance to the 
 woman he loved. 
 
 Sane to the last! And let us, too, hope that these dear 
 words are true of all the countless dead. 
 
HERE ENDETH THE LITTLE JOURNEY TO THE HOME OF 
 ROBERT INGERSOLL: WRITTEN BY ELBERT HUBBARD. 
 THE BORDERS, INITIALS AND ORNAMENTS DESIGNED 
 BY SAMUEL WARNER, PRESSWORK BY LOUIS SCHELL, 
 & THE WHOLE DONE INTO A BOOK BY THE ROYCROFT- 
 ERS AT THEIR SHOP, WHICH IS IN EAST AURORA, IN 
 THE MONTH OF AUGUST, IN THE YEAR MCMIII 444 
 

 mttit 3 
 
 TO THE HOMES OF 
 
 EMINENT ORATORS 
 
 
 Vol. XIII. SEPT., 1903. No. 3 
 
 By ELBERT HUBBARD 
 
 
 Single Copies, 25 cents 
 
 By the Year, $3.00 
 
GIFT OF 
 Dr. Robert T. Sutherland 
 
 One book 
 ning on 
 The L 
 de luxe 
 new fo 
 especia 
 the ori 
 will be 
 The pri 
 
 Addre 
 Shop, 
 
 Entered at the postoffice at East Aurora, New York, for transmission 
 as second-class mail matter. Copyright, 1902, by Elbert Hubbard 
 
Little 
 pouimeys 
 
 To the Homes ol 
 
 EMINENT 
 lORATORS 
 
 UJttitten by Elbent 
 Hubband & done 
 into a Book by the 
 Royei*oftet*$ at the 
 Shop, u>hich is in 
 East fluttotta,ncu> 
 Yoitk, H. D*1903 
 
IT is in vain, sir, to extenuate the matter. Gentlemen may cry, Peace, 
 peace; but there is no peace. The war is actually begun. The 
 next gale that sweeps from the north will bring to our ears the clash 
 of resounding arms. Our brethren are already in the field. Why stand 
 we here idle? What is it that gentlemen wish? What would they 
 have ? Is life so dear, or peace so sweet, as to be purchased at the 
 price of chains and slavery ? Forbid it, Almighty God ! I know not 
 what course others may take ; but as for me, give me liberty or give 
 me death ! 
 
PATRICK HENRY 
 
 61 
 
 |ARAH SYME was a blooming widow, 
 thirty-two in June such widows are 
 never over thirty-two and managed her 
 estate of a thousand acres in Hanover 
 County, Virginia, with business ability. 
 That such a widow, and thirty-two, 
 should remain a widow in a pioneer coun 
 try was out of the question. 
 She had suitors. Their horses were tied 
 to the pickets all day long. 
 One of these suitors has described the 
 widow for us. He says she was " lively 
 in disposition," and he also uses the 
 words "buxom" and "portly." I do not 
 like these expressions they suggest too 
 much, so I will none of them. I would 
 rather refer to her as lissome and wil 
 lowy, and tell how her sorrow for the 
 dead wrapped her round with weeds 
 and becoming sable but in the interests 
 of truth I dare not. 
 
 Some of her suitors were widowers 
 ancient of days, fat and falstaffian. Others 
 were lean and lachrymose, with large 
 families, fortunes impaired and futures 
 mostly behind. Then there were gay fox 
 hunting holluschickies, without serious 
 intent and minus both future and past 
 worth mentioning, who called and sat on 
 
62 PATRICK HENRY 
 
 the front porch because they thought their presence 
 would be pleasing and relieve the tedium of widow 
 hood #* jr 
 
 Then there was a young Scotch schoolmaster, edu 
 cated, temperate, and gentlemanly, who came to in 
 struct the two children of the widow in long division 
 and who blushed to the crown of his red head when 
 the widow invited him to tea. 
 
 Have a care, Widow Syme ! Destiny has use for you 
 with your lively ways and portly form. You are to 
 make history, help mold a political policy, fan the 
 flames of war, and through motherhood make your 
 self immortal. Choose your casket wisely, O "Widow 
 Syme! It is the hour of Fate! 
 
 THE widow was a Queen Bee and so had a per 
 fect right to choose her mate. The Scotchman 
 proved to be it. He was only twenty-five, they 
 say, but he was man enough when standing before the 
 Registrar to make it thirty. When he put his red head 
 inside the church door some one cried, "Genius!" 
 And so they were married and lived happily ever after. 
 Q And the name of the Scotchman was John Henry 
 I ll not deceive you, Sweet! 
 
 John and Sarah were well suited to each other. 
 John was exact, industrious, practical. The wife had 
 a lively sense of humor, was entertaining and intelli 
 gent. Under the management of the canny Scot the 
 
PATRICK HENRY 63 
 
 estate took on a look of prosperity. The man was 
 a model citizen honors traveled his way: he became 
 colonel of the local militia, county surveyor, and finally 
 magistrate. Babies arrived as rapidly as Nature would 
 allow and with the regularity of an electric clock 
 although, of course, there was n t any electricity then. 
 QThe second child was named Patrick, Jr., in honor 
 and in deference to a brother of the happy father a 
 clergyman of the Established Church. Patrick Henry 
 always subscribed himself "P. Henry, Jr.," & whether 
 he was ever aware that there was only one Patrick 
 Henry is a question. 
 
 There were nine altogether in the brood eight of them 
 good, honest, barn-yard fowls. 
 And one was an eagle. 
 
 Why this was so no one knew the mother did n t 
 know and the father could not guess. All of them were 
 born under about the same conditions, all received 
 about the same training or lack of it. 
 However, no one at first suspected that the eagle was 
 an eagle over a score of years were to pass before he 
 was suddenly to spread out strong, sinewy wings and 
 soar to the ether. 
 
 Patrick Henry caused his parents more trouble and 
 anxiety than all the rest of the family combined. Pat 
 rick and culture had nothing in common. As a young 
 ster he roamed the woods, bare of foot and bare of 
 head, his only garments a shirt and trousers held in 
 place by a single gallus. He was indolent, dreamy, 
 
64 PATRICK HENRY 
 
 procrastinating, frolicsome, with a beautiful aversion 
 to books, and a fondness for fishing that was carried 
 to the limit. The boy s mother did n t worry very 
 much about the youngster, but the father had spells 
 when he took the matter to the Lord in prayer, and 
 afterward, growing impatient of an answer, fell to and 
 used the tawse without mercy. John Henry probably 
 did this as much to relieve his own feelings as for the 
 good of the boy, but doubtless he did not reason quite 
 that far. 
 
 Patrick nursed his black and blue spots and fell back 
 on his flute for solace. 
 
 After one such seance, when he was twelve years of 
 age, he disappeared with a colored boy about his own 
 age. They took a shot gun, fishing tackle and a violin. 
 They were gone three weeks, during which time Patrick 
 had not been out of his clothes, nor once washed his 
 face. They had slept out under the sky by camp-fires. 
 The smell of smoke was surely on his garments, and 
 his parents were put to their wits to distinguish be 
 tween the bond and the free. 
 
 Had Patrick been an only child he would have driven 
 his mother into hysteria and his father to the flowing 
 bowl (I trust I use the right expression). If not this, 
 then it would have been because the fond parents had 
 found peace by transforming their son into a Little 
 Lord Fauntleroy. Nature shows great wisdom in send 
 ing the young in litters they educate each other, and 
 so divide the time of the mother that attention to the 
 
PATRICK HENRY 65 
 
 individual is limited to the actual needs. Too much in 
 terference with children is a grave mistake. 
 Patrick Henry quit school at fifteen with a love for 
 rithmetic it was such a fine puzzle and an equal 
 regard for history history was a lot o good stories. 
 For two years he rode wild horses, tramped the woods 
 with rod and gun, and played the violin at country 
 dances jf & 
 
 Another spasm of fear, chagrin and discouragement 
 sweeping over the father on account of the indifference 
 and profligacy of his son, he decided to try the youth 
 in trade, and if this failed, to let him go to the devil. 
 So a stock of general goods was purchased and Patrick 
 and William, the elder brother, were shoved off upon 
 the uncertain sea of commerce. 
 
 The result was just what might have been expected. 
 The store was a loafing place for all the ne er-do-wells 
 in the vicinity. Patrick trusted everybody those who 
 could not get trusted elsewhere patronized Patrick. 
 Things grew worse. In a year, when just eighteen years 
 old, P. Henry, Jr., got married married a rollicking 
 country lass, as foolish as himself done in bravado, 
 going home from a dance, calling a minister out on 
 his porch, in a crazy quilt, to perform the ceremony. 
 John Henry would have applied the birch to this hare 
 brained bridegroom, and the father of the girl would 
 have stung her pink and white anatomy, but Patrick 
 coolly explained that the matter could not be undone 
 they were duly married for better or for worse, and so 
 
66 PATRICK HENRY 
 
 the less fuss the better. Patrick loved his Doxey, and 
 the Doxey loved her Patrick, and together they made 
 as precious a pair of beggars as ever played Gypsy 
 music at a country fair. 
 
 Most of the time they were at the home of the bride s 
 parents not by invitation but they were there. The 
 place was a wayside tavern. The girl made herself 
 useful in the kitchen, and Patrick welcomed the trav 
 eler and tended bar. 
 
 So things drifted, until Patrick was twenty-four, 
 when one fine day he appeared on the streets of Will- 
 iamsburg. He had come in on horseback and his boots, 
 clothing, hair and complexion formed a chromatic en 
 semble the color of Hanover County clay. The account 
 comes from his old time comrade, Thomas Jefferson, 
 who was at Williamsburg attending college. 
 " I ve come up here to be admitted to the bar," gravely 
 said P. Henry to T. Jefferson. 
 "But you are a bar-keeper now, I hear." 
 "Yes," said Patrick, "but that s the other kind. You 
 see, I ve been studying law, and I want to be admitted 
 to practice." 
 
 It took several minutes for the man who was to write 
 the Declaration of Independence to get it through his 
 head that the matter was n t a joke. Then he con 
 ducted the lean, lank, rawboned rustic into the presence 
 of the judges. There were four of these men, Wythe, 
 Pendleton, Peyton and John Randolph. These men 
 were all to be colleagues of the bumpkin at the First 
 
PATRICK HENRY 67 
 
 Continental Congress at Philadelphia, but that lay in 
 the misty future. 
 
 They looked at the candidate in surprise; two of them 
 laughed and two looked needlessly solemn. However, 
 after some little parley, they consented to examine 
 the clown as to his fitness to practice law. 
 In answer to the first question as to how long he had 
 studied, his reply was, "About six weeks." 
 One biographer says six months, and still another, 
 with anxious intent to prove the excellence of his 
 man, says six years. 
 
 We had better take Jefferson s word "Patrick Henry s 
 reply was six weeks." As much as to say, "What 
 difference is it about how long I have studied? You 
 are here to find out how much I know. There are men 
 who can get more in six weeks than others can in six 
 years I may be one of these." 
 
 The easy indifference of the fellow was sublime. But 
 he did know a little law, and he also knew a deal of 
 history. The main thing against him was his unkempt 
 appearance. After some hesitation the judges gave the 
 required certificate, with a little lecture on the side 
 concerning the beauties of etiquette and right attire 
 as an adjunct to excellence in the learned professions. 
 QYoung Mr. Jefferson did n t wait to witness the 
 examination of his friend it was too painful and be 
 sides he did not wish to be around so as to get any of the 
 blame when the prayer for admission was denied. 
 So Patrick had to find Thomas. "I ve got it!" said 
 
68 PATRICK HENRY 
 
 Patrick, and smiled grimly as he tapped his breast 
 pocket where the certificate was safely stowed. 
 Then he mounted his lean dun horse and rode away, 
 disappearing into the forest. 
 
 AS a pedagogic policy the training that Patrick 
 Henry received would be rank ruin. Educational 
 systems are designed for average intellects, but 
 as if to show us the littleness of our little schemes, 
 Destiny seems to give her first prizes to those who 
 have evaded all rules and ignored every axiom. Rules 
 and regulations are for average men and so are aver 
 age prizes. 
 
 Speak it softly : There are several ways of getting an 
 education. Patrick Henry got his in the woods, follow 
 ing winding streams or lying at night under the stars; 
 by mastering horses and wild animals ; by listening to 
 the wrangling of lawyers at country lawsuits, and the 
 endless talk of planters who sat long hours at the 
 tavern, willingly leaving the labors of the field to the 
 sons of Ham. 
 
 Thus, at twenty-four, Patrick Henry had first of all a 
 physical constitution like watch-spring steel he had 
 no nerves fatigue was unknown to him he was not 
 aware that he had a stomach. His intellectual endow 
 ment lay in his close intimacy with Nature he knew 
 her and was so a part of her that he never thought of 
 her, any more than the fishes think of the sea. The 
 
PATRICK HENRY 69 
 
 continual dwelling on a subject proves our ignorance 
 of it we discuss only that for which we are reaching 
 out *r *f 
 
 Then, Patrick Henry knew men he knew the workers, 
 the toilers, the young, the old, the learned and the 
 ignorant. He had mingled with mankind from behind 
 the counter, the tavern bar, in court and school and 
 in church by the roadside, at horse-races, camp-meet 
 ings, dances and social gatherings. He was light of 
 foot, ready of tongue, and with no thought as to re 
 spectability, and no doubts and fears regarding the 
 bread and butter question. He had no pride, save pos 
 sibly a pride in the fact that he had none. He played 
 checkers, worked out mathematical problems in his 
 mind to astonish the loafers, related history to instruct 
 them and get it straight in his own mind and told 
 them stories to make them laugh. It is a great misfor 
 tune to associate only with cultured people." God loves 
 the common people," said Lincoln, "otherwise He 
 would not have made so many of them." Patrick Henry 
 knew them ; and is not this an education to know Life ? 
 QHe knew he could move men; that he could mold 
 their thoughts ; that he could convince them and bring 
 them over to his own way of thinking. He had done it 
 by the hour. In the continual rural litigations, he had 
 watched lawyers make their appeal to the jury ; he had 
 sat on these juries, and he knew he could do the trick 
 better. Therefore, he wanted to become a lawyer. 
 The practice of law to him was to convince, befog, or 
 
TO PATRICK HENRY 
 
 divert the jury; he could do it, and so he applied for 
 permission to practice law. 
 
 He was successful from the first. His clownish ways 
 pleased the judge, jury and spectators. His ready 
 tongue and infinite good humor made him a favorite. 
 There may not be much law in Justice of the Peace 
 proceedings, but there is a certain rude equity which 
 answers the purpose, possibly, better. And surely it is 
 good practice for the fledgelings : the best way to learn 
 law is to practice it. And the successful practice of the 
 law lies almost as much in evading the law as in com 
 plying with it I suppose we should say that softly, 
 too. In support of the last proposition, let me say that 
 we are dealing with P. Henry, Jr., of Virginia, arch- 
 rebel, and a defier of law and precedent. Had he rev 
 erenced law as law, his name would have been writ in 
 water. The reputation of the man hinges on the fact 
 that he defied authority. 
 
 The first great speech of Patrick Henry was a defi 
 ance of the Common Law of England when it got in 
 the way of the rights of the people. Every immortal 
 speech ever given has been an appeal from the law of 
 man to the Higher Law. 
 
 Patrick Henry was twenty-seven ; the same age that 
 Wendell Phillips was when he discovered himself. 
 No one had guessed the genius of the man least of 
 all his parents. He himself did not know his power. 
 The years that had gone had been fallow years years 
 of failure but it was alia getting together of his forces 
 
PATRICK HENRY 71 
 
 for the spring. Relaxation is the first requisite of 
 strength. 
 
 The case was a forlorn hope, and Patrick Henry, the 
 awkward but clever country pettifogger, was retained 
 to defend the " Parsons Cause," because he had opin 
 ions in the matter and no reputation to lose. 
 First, let it be known that Virginia had an Established 
 Church, which was really the Church of England. The 
 towns were called parishes, and the selectmen, or 
 supervisors, were vestrymen. These vestrymen hired 
 the rectors or preachers, and the money which paid 
 the preachers came from taxes levied on the people. 
 Q Now the standard of value in Virginia was tobacco, 
 and the vestrymen, instead of paying the parsons in 
 money, agreed to pay each parson sixteen thousand 
 pounds of tobacco, with curates and bishops in pro 
 portion jf & 
 
 But there came a bad year; the tobacco crop was 
 ruined by a drought, and the value of the weed doubled 
 in price. 
 
 The parsons demanded their tobacco ; a bargain was 
 a bargain ; when tobacco was plentiful and cheap they 
 had taken their quota and said nothing. Now that to 
 bacco was scarce and high, things were merely equal 
 ized ; a contract was a contract. 
 
 But the people complained. The theme was discussed 
 in every tavern and store. There were not wanting in 
 fidels to say that the parsons should have prayed for 
 rain, and that as they did not secure the moisture, 
 
72 PATRICK HENRY 
 
 they were remiss. Others asked by what right shall 
 men who do not labor demand a portion of the crop 
 from those who plant, hoe and harvest ? 
 Of course all good Church people, all of the really 
 loyal citizens, argued that the Parsons were a neces 
 sary part of the state without them society would 
 sink into savagery and as they did their duties, they 
 should be paid by the people ; they served, and all con 
 tracts made with them should be kept. 
 But the mutterings of discontent continued, and to 
 appease the people, the House of Burgesses passed a 
 law providing that instead of tobacco being a legal 
 tender, all debts could be paid in money, figuring to 
 bacco at the rate of two cents per pound. As tobacco 
 was worth about three times this amount, it will be 
 seen at once that this was a law made in favor of the 
 debtor class. It cut the salaries of the rectors down 
 just two-thirds, and struck straight at English Com 
 mon Law, which provides for the sacredness of con 
 tract & 4T 
 
 The rectors combined and decided to make a test case. 
 The Parsons vs. the People or, more properly, "The 
 Rev. John Maury vs. The Colony of Virginia." 
 Both law and equity were on the side of the Parsons. 
 Their case was clear ; only by absolutely overriding 
 the law of England could the people win. The array 
 of legal talent on the side of the Church included the 
 best lawyers in the Colony the Randolphs and other 
 aristocrats were there. 
 
PATRICK HENRY 73 
 
 And on the other side was Patrick Henry, the tall, 
 lean, lank, sallow and uncouth representative of the 
 people. Five judges were on the bench, one of whom 
 was the father of Patrick Henry. 
 
 The matter was opened in a logical, lucid, judicial 
 speech by the Hon. Jeremiah Lyon. He stated the case 
 without passion or prejudice there was only one side 
 to it <T 4T 
 
 Then Patrick Henry arose. He began to speak ; stopped, 
 hesitated, began again, shuffled his feet, cleared his 
 throat, and his father, on the bench, blushed for shame. 
 The auditors thought he was going to break down 
 even the opposition pitied him. 
 
 Suddenly, his tall form shot up, he stepped one step 
 forward and stood like a statue of bronze his own 
 father did not recognize him, he had so changed. His 
 features were transformed from those of a clown into 
 those of command and proud intelligence. A poise so 
 perfect came upon him that it was ominous. He began 
 to speak his sentences were crystalline, sharp, clear, 
 direct. The judges leaned forward, the audience hung 
 breathless upon his words. 
 
 He began by showing how all wealth comes from labor 
 applied to the land. He pictured the people at their 
 work, showed the laborer in the field in the rains of 
 spring, under the blaze of the summer sun, amid the 
 frosts of autumn bond and free working side by side 
 with brain and brawn, to wring from the earth a 
 scanty sustenance. He showed the homes of the poor, 
 
74 PATRICK HENRY 
 
 the mother with babe at her breast, the girls cooking 
 at the fire, others tending the garden all the process 
 of toil and travail, of patient labor and endless effort, 
 were rapidly marshaled forth. Over against this, he 
 unveiled the clergy in broadcloth and silken gowns, 
 riding in carriages, seated on cushions and living a life 
 of luxury. He turned and faced the opposition, and 
 shook his bony finger at them in scorn and contempt. 
 The faces of the judges grew livid ; many of the Par 
 sons, unable to endure his withering rebuke, sneaked 
 away : the people forgot to applaud ; only silence and 
 the stinging, ringing voice of the speaker filled the air. 
 Q He accused the Parsons of being the defiers of the 
 law; the people had passed the statute ; the preachers 
 had come, asking that it be annulled. And then was 
 voiced, I believe, for the first time in America, the 
 truth that government exists only by the consent 
 of the governed : that law is the crystallized opinion 
 of the people that the voice of the people is the voice 
 of God that the act of the Parsons, in seeking to over 
 ride the will of the people, was treason, and should 
 be punished. He defied the Common Law of England 
 and appealed to the Law of God the question of right 
 the question of justice to whom does the fruit of 
 labor belong! 
 
 Before the fiery, overpowering torrent of eloquence of 
 the man, the reason of the judges fled. There was but 
 one will in that assembly, and that will was the will 
 of Patrick Henry. 
 
PATRICK HENRY _ 75 
 
 IN that first great speech of his life probably the 
 greatest speech then ever given in Virginia Patrick 
 Henry committed himself irrevocably on the sub 
 ject of human rights. The theme of taxation came to 
 him in a way it never had before. Men are taxed that 
 other men may live in idleness. Those who pay the 
 tax must decide whether the tax is just or not any 
 thing else is robbery. We shall see how this thought 
 took a hold on Patrick s very life. It was the weak 
 many against the entrenched few. He had said more 
 than he had intended to say he had expressed things 
 which he never before knew that he knew. As he made 
 truth plain to his auditors, he had clarified his own 
 
 The heavens had opened before him he was as one 
 transformed. That outward change in his appearance 
 only marked an inward illumination which had come 
 to his spirit. In great oratory the appearance of the 
 man is always changed. Men grow by throes and throbs, 
 by leaps and bounds. The idea of "Cosmic Conscious 
 ness being born again is not without its foundation 
 in fact the soul is in process of gestation, and when 
 the time is ripe the new birth occurs, and will occur 
 again and again. 
 
 Patrick Henry at once took his place among the strong 
 men of Virginia he was a personality that must be 
 reckoned with in political affairs. His law practice 
 doubled, and to keep it down he doubled his prices 
 with the usual effect. He then tried another expedient, 
 
76 PATRICK HENRY 
 
 and very few lawyers indeed are strong enough to do 
 this he would accept no case until the fee was paid 
 in advance. "I keep no books my fee is so much 
 pay this and I will undertake your case." He accepted 
 no contingent cases, and if he believed his client was 
 in the wrong, he told him so, and brought about a com 
 promise. Some enemies were made through this frank 
 advice, but when the fight was once on, Patrick Henry 
 was a whirlwind of wrath he saw but one side and 
 believed in his client s cause as though it had been 
 written by Deity on tables of stone. 
 Long years after the death of Patrick Henry, Thomas 
 Jefferson made some remarks about Henry s indolence, 
 and his indisposition to write out things. A little 
 more insight, or less prejudice, would have shown 
 that Patrick Henry s plan was only Nature s scheme 
 for the conservation of forces, and at the last was the 
 highest wisdom. 
 
 By demanding the fee in advance, the business was 
 simplified immensely. It tested the good faith of the 
 would-be litigant, cut down the number of clients, 
 preserved the peace, freed the secretions, aided diges 
 tion and tended to sweet sleep o nights. 
 Litigation is a luxury that must be paid for by the 
 other fellow, we expect when we begin, but later we 
 find we are it. If the lawyers would form a union and 
 agree not to listen to any man s tale of Woe until he 
 placed a hundred dollars in the attorney s ginger jar, 
 it would be a benefit untold to humanity. Contingent 
 
PATRICK HENRY 77 
 
 fees and blackmail have much in common. Q A man 
 who could speak in public like Patrick Henry was 
 destined for a political career. A vacancy in the 
 State Legislature occurring, the tide of events carried 
 him in. Hardly had he taken the oath and been seated 
 before the house resolved itself into a Committee of 
 the Whole to consider the Stamp Act. Mutterings 
 from New England had been heard, but Virginia was 
 inclined to abide by the acts of the Mother Country, 
 gaining merely such modifications as could be brought 
 about by modest argument and respectful petition. 
 And in truth let it be stated that the Mother Country 
 had not shown herself blind to the rights of the Colonies, 
 nor deaf to their prayers the aristocrats of Virginia 
 usually got what they wanted. QThe Stamp Act was 
 up for discussion the gavel rapped for order and the 
 Speaker declared the house in session. 
 "Mr. Speaker," rang out a high, clear voice. It was 
 the voice of the new member. Inadvertently he was 
 recognized and had the floor. There -was a little 
 more "senatorial courtesy" then than now in de 
 liberative bodies, and one of the unwritten laws of the 
 Virginia Legislature was that no member during his 
 first session should make an extended speech or take 
 an active part in the business of the house. 
 "Sir, I present for the consideration of this House the 
 following resolutions." And the new member read 
 seven resolutions he had scrawled off on the fly leaves 
 of a convenient law book. 
 
78 PATRICK HENRY 
 
 As he read, the older members winced and writhed. 
 Peyton Randolph cursed him under his breath. This 
 audacious youth in buckskin shirt and leather breeches 
 -was assuming the leadership of the House. His audacity 
 was unprecedented! Here are Numbers Five, Six, 
 and Seven of the Resolutions these give the meat 
 of the matter: 
 
 Resolved, That the general assembly of this colony 
 has the only and sole exclusive right and power to 
 lay taxes and impositions upon the inhabitants of this 
 colony; and that every attempt to vest such power in 
 any person or persons whatsoever, other than the 
 general assembly aforesaid, has a manifest tendency 
 to destroy British as well as American freedom. 
 Resolved, That His Majesty s liege people, the in 
 habitants of this colony, are not bound to yield obedi 
 ence to any law or ordinance whatever, designed to 
 impose any taxation whatsoever upon them, other 
 than the laws or ordinances of the general assembly 
 aforesaid jf jf 
 
 Resolved, That any person who shall, by speaking or 
 writing, assert or maintain that any person or persons, 
 other than the general assembly of this colony, have 
 any right or power to impose or lay any taxation on 
 the people here, shall be deemed an enemy to His 
 Majesty s colony. 
 
 As the uncouth member ceased to read, there went 
 up a howl of disapproval. But the resolutions were 
 launched, and according to the rules of the House they 
 could be argued, and in order to be repudiated, must 
 be voted upon. 
 Patrick Henry stood almost alone. Pitted against him 
 
PATRICK HENRY 79 
 
 was the very flower of Virginia s age and intellect. 
 Logic, argument, abuse, raillery and threat were 
 heaped upon his head. He stood like adamant and 
 answered shot for shot. It was the speech in the "Par 
 sons Cause" multiplied by ten the theme was the 
 same the right to confiscate the results of labor. Be 
 fore the debater had ceased, couriers were carrying 
 copies of Patrick Henry s resolutions to New England. 
 Every press printed them the people were aroused, 
 and the name of Patrick Henry became known in every 
 cot and cabin throughout the Colonies. He was the 
 mouthpiece of the plain people; what Samuel Adams 
 stood for in New England, Patrick Henry hurled in 
 voice of thunder at the heads of aristocrats in Virginia. 
 He lighted the fuse of rebellion. 
 
 One passage in that first encounter in the Virginia 
 Legislature has become deathless. Hacknied though 
 it be, it can never grow old. Referring to the injustice 
 of the Stamp Act, Patrick Henry reached the climax 
 of his speech in these words : " Caesar had his Brutus ; 
 Charles the First, his Cromwell; & George the Third " 
 "Treason," shouted the Speaker, and the gavel splint 
 ered the desk. "Treason! treason," came in roars 
 from all over the house. Patrick Henry paused, proud 
 and defiant, waiting for the tumult to subside "And 
 George the Third may profit by their example. If this 
 be treason, make the most of it ! " And he took his seat. 
 CJThe resolutions were put to a vote and carried. Again 
 Patrick Henry had won. 
 
PATRICK HENRY 
 
 BY a singular coincidence, on the same day that 
 Patrick Henry, of his own accord, introduced 
 those resolutions at Williamsburg, a mass 
 meeting was held in Boston to consider the same 
 theme, and similar resolutions were passed. There 
 was this difference, however Patrick Henry flung 
 his reasons into the teeth of an intrenched opposition 
 and fought the fight single-handed, while in Boston 
 the resolutions were read and passed by an assembly 
 that had met for no other purpose. 
 Patrick Henry s triumph was heralded throughout 
 New England and gave strength and courage to those 
 of feeble knees. From a Colonial he sprang into national 
 fame, and his own words, "I am not a Virginian I 
 am an American ! " went ringing through New England 
 hills rtf<r 
 
 Meantime, Patrick Henry went back to his farm and 
 law office. His wife rejoiced in his success, laughed 
 with him at his mishaps and was always the helpful, 
 uncomplaining comrade, and as he himself expressed it, 
 " My best friend." And when he would get back home 
 from one of his trips, the neighbors would gather to 
 hear from his own lips about what he had done & said. 
 He was still the unaffected countryman, seemingly 
 careless, happy and indolent. It was on the occasion 
 of one of these family gatherings that a contemporary 
 saw him and wrote, " In mock complaint he exclaimed, 
 How can I play the fiddle with two babies on each 
 knee and three on my back! " 
 
PATRICK HENRY 81 
 
 So the years went by in work, play and gradually 
 widening fame. Patrick Henry grew with his work 
 the years gave him dignity gradually the thought of 
 his heart graved its lines upon his face. The mouth 
 became firm and the entire look of the man was that 
 of earnest resolution. Fate was pushing him on. What 
 once was only whispered, he had voiced in trumpet 
 tones; the thought of liberty was being openly ex 
 pressed even in pulpits. 
 
 He had been returned to the Legislature, was a mem 
 ber of the Continental Congress, and rode horseback 
 side by side with Washington and Pendleton to Phila 
 delphia, as told at length in Washington s diary. 
 In his utterances he was a little less fiery, but in his 
 heart, everybody who knew him at all realized that 
 there dwelt the thought of liberty for the Colonies. 
 John Adams wrote to Abigail that Patrick Henry looked 
 like a Quaker preacher turned Presbyterian. 
 A year later came what has been rightly called the 
 third great speech of Henry s life, the speech at the 
 Revolutionary Convention at Richmond. Good people 
 often expect to hear oratory at a banquet, a lyceum 
 lecture, or in a Sunday sermon, but oratory is neither 
 lecture, talk, harangue, declamation nor preaching. 
 Of course we say that the great speech is the one that 
 has been given many times, but the fact is, the great 
 speech is never given but once. 
 
 The time is ripe the hour arrives mighty issues 
 tremble in the balances. The auditors are not there to 
 
82 PATRICK HENRY 
 
 be amused nor instructed they have not stopped at 
 the box-office and paid good money to have their 
 senses alternately lulled and tittilated no! The ques 
 tion is that of liberty or bondage, life or death pas 
 sion is in the saddle, hate and prejudice are sweeping 
 events into a maelstrom, and now is the time for 
 oratory! Such occasions are as rare as the birth of 
 stars. A man stands before you it is no time for fine 
 phrasing no time for pose or platitude. Self-conscious 
 ness is swallowed up in purpose. He is as calm as 
 the waters above the Rapids of Niagara, as composed 
 as a lioness before she makes her spring. Intensity 
 measures itself in perfect poise. And Patrick Henry 
 arises to speak. Those who love the man pray for him 
 in breathless silence, and the many who hate him in 
 their hearts, curse him. Pale faces grow paler, throats 
 swallow hard, hands clutch at nothing and open and 
 shut in nervous spasms. It is the hour of fate. Patrick 
 Henry speaks: 
 
 MR. PRESIDENT: It is natural for man to in 
 dulge in the illusions of hope. We are apt to 
 shut our eyes against a painful truth, and listen 
 to the song of the siren until she transforms us into 
 beasts. Is this the part of wise men, engaged in a great 
 and arduous struggle for liberty? Are we disposed 
 to be of the number of those who having eyes see not, 
 and having ears hear not the things which so nearly 
 concern their temporal salvation? For my part, what 
 ever anguish of spirit it may cost, I am willing to know 
 
PATRICK HENRY 83 
 
 the whole truth; to know the worst & to provide for it. 
 QI have but one lamp by which my feet are guided; 
 and that is the lamp of experience. I know of no 
 way of judging of the future but by the past. And 
 judging by the past, I "wish to know what there has 
 been in the conduct of the British Ministry for the last 
 ten years, to justify those hopes with which gentlemen 
 have been pleased to solace themselves and this 
 house? Is it that insidious smile with which our peti 
 tion has been lately received? Trust it not, it will 
 prove a snare to your feet. Suffer not yourselves to be 
 betrayed with a kiss. Ask yourselves how this gracious 
 reception of our petition comports with those war 
 like preparations which cover our waters and darken 
 our land. Are fleets and armies necessary to a work 
 of love and reconciliation? Have we shown ourselves 
 so unwilling to be reconciled that force must be called 
 in to win back our love? Let us not deceive ourselves, 
 sir. These are the implements of war and subjugation 
 the last arguments to which kings resort. I say, 
 gentlemen, what means this martial array, if its pur 
 pose be not to force us to submission? Can you assign 
 any other possible motive for it ? Has Britain any enemy 
 in this quarter of the world, to call for all this accumu 
 lation of navies and armies? No, sir, she has none. 
 They are meant for us; they can be meant for no 
 other. They are sent over to bind and rivet upon us 
 those chains which the British Ministry have been 
 so long forging. And what have we to oppose to them? 
 Shall we try argument? Sir, we have been trying that 
 for the last ten years. Have we anything new to offer 
 upon the subject? Nothing. We have held the subject 
 up in every light of which it is capable; but it has 
 been all in vain. Shall we resort to entreaty and humble 
 supplication? what terms shall we find which have 
 
84 PATRICK HENRY 
 
 not been already exhausted? Let us not, I beseech 
 you, deceive ourselves longer. 
 
 Sir, we have done everything that could be done to 
 avert the storm which is now coming on. We have 
 petitioned, we have remonstrated, we have suppli 
 cated, we have prostrated ourselves before the throne, 
 and have implored its interposition to arrest the ty 
 rannical hands of the Ministry and Parliament. Our 
 petitions have been slighted; our remonstrances have 
 produced additional violence and insult; our suppli 
 cations have been disregarded; and we have been 
 spurned with contempt from the foot of the throne. 
 In vain, after these things, may we indulge the fond 
 hope of peace and reconciliation. There is no longer 
 any room for hope. If we wish to be free, if we mean 
 to preserve inviolate those inestimable privileges for 
 which we have been so long contending, if we mean 
 not basely to abandon the noble struggle in which 
 we have been so long engaged, and which we have 
 pledged ourselves never to abandon until the glori 
 ous object of our contest shall be obtained we must 
 fight! I repeat it, sir, we must fight! An appeal to 
 arms and to the God of Hosts is all that is left us! 
 They tell us, sir, that we are weak unable to cope 
 with so formidable an adversary. But when shall we 
 be stronger? Will it be the next week, or the next 
 year? Will it be when we are totally disarmed, and 
 when a British guard shall be stationed in every 
 house? Shall we gather strength by irresolution and 
 inaction? Shall we acquire the means of effectual re 
 sistance by lying supinely on our backs, and hugging 
 the delusive phantom of hope until our enemies shall 
 have bound us hand and foot? Sir, we are not weak, 
 if we make a proper use of those means which the 
 God of nature hath placed in our power. Three mil- 
 
PATRICK HENRY 85 
 
 lions of people, armed in the holy cause of liberty, and 
 in such a country as that which we possess, are in 
 vincible by any force which our enemy can send 
 against us. Besides, sir, we shall not fight our battles 
 alone. There is a just God who presides over the des 
 tinies of nations ; and who will raise up friends to fight 
 our battles for us. The battle, sir, is not to the strong 
 alone; it is to the vigilant, the active, the brave. Be 
 sides, sir, we have no election. If we were base enough 
 to desire it, it is now too late to retire from the contest. 
 There is no retreat but in submission and slavery f 
 Our chains are forged; their clanking may be heard on 
 the plains of Boston! The war is inevitable and let 
 it come! I repeat it, sir, let it come! 
 It is in vain, sir, to extenuate the matter. Gentlemen 
 may cry, Peace, peace; but there is no peace. The war 
 is actually begun. The next gale that sweeps from the 
 north will bring to our ears the clash of resounding 
 arms. Our brethren are already in the field. "Why stand 
 we here idle? What is it that gentlemen wish? What 
 would they have ? Is life so dear, or peace so sweet, 
 as to be purchased at the price of chains and slavery ? 
 Forbid it, Almighty God! I know not what course 
 others may take, but as for me, give me liberty or give 
 me death ! 
 
 LIFE is a gradual death. There are animals and 
 insects that die on the instant of the culmination 
 of the act for which they were created. Success 
 is death, and death, if you have bargained wisely with 
 fate, is victory. 
 
 Patrick Henry, with his panther s strength and nerves 
 of steel, had thrown his life into a Cause that Cause 
 
86 PATRICK HENRY 
 
 had won, and now the lassitude of dissolution crept 
 into his veins. We hear of hair growing white in a 
 single day, and we know that men may round out a 
 life-work in an hour. Oratory, like all of God s greatest 
 gifts, is bought with a price. The abandon of the orator 
 is the spending of his divine heritage for a purpose. 
 Patrick Henry had given himself. Even in his law 
 business he was the conscientious servant, and having 
 undertaken a cause, he put his soul into it. Shame 
 upon those who call this man indolent ! He often did in 
 a day between the rising of the sun and its setting 
 what others spread out thin over a life-time and then 
 fail to accomplish. 
 
 And now virtue had gone out from him. Four times 
 had Virginia elected him Governor; he had served his 
 state well, and on the fifth nomination he had de 
 clined. When Washington wished to make him his 
 Secretary of State, he smiled and shook his head, 
 and to the entreaty that he be Chief Justice of the 
 Supreme Court, he said that there were others who 
 could fill the place better, but he knew of no one who 
 could manage his farm. 
 
 And so he again became the country lawyer, looked 
 after his plantation, attended to the education of his 
 children, told stories to the neighbors who came and 
 sat on the veranda now and again went to rustic 
 parties, played the violin, and the voice that had cried, 
 " Give me liberty or give me death," called off for the 
 merry dancers as in the days of old. 
 
PATRICK HENRY 
 
 In 1799, at the personal request of Washington, who 
 needed, or thought he needed, a strong advocate at 
 the Capitol, Patrick Henry ran for the Legislature. He 
 was elected, but before the day arrived when he was 
 to take his seat, he sickened and died, surrounded by 
 his stricken family. Those who knew him, loved him 
 those who did not love him, did not know him. 
 And a Nation mourned his taking off. 
 
HERE ENDETH THE LITTLE JOURNEY TO THE HOME OF 
 PATRICK HENRY: WRITTEN BY ELBERT HUBBARD. 
 THE BORDERS, INITIALS AND ORNAMENTS DESIGNED 
 BY SAMUEL WARNER, PRESSWORK BY LOUIS SCHELL, 
 & THE WHOLE DONE INTO A BOOK BY THE ROYCROFT- 
 ERS AT THEIR SHOP, WHICH IS IN EAST AURORA, IN 
 THE MONTH OF SEPTEMBER, IN THE YEAR MCMIII. 
 

 TO THE HOMES OF EMINENT ORATORS 
 
 Vol. XIII. OCTOBER, 1903. No. 4 
 
 By ELBERT HUBBARD 
 
 Single Copies, 25 cents By the Year, $3.00 
 
GIFT OF 
 Dr. Robert T. Sutherland 
 
 Entered at the postoffice at East Aurora, New York, for transmission 
 as second-class mail matter. Copyright, 1902, by Elbert Hubbard 
 
Little 06 
 Journeys 
 
 | To the Homes of 
 
 EMINENT 
 [ORATORS 
 
 Ulititten by Elbert 
 Hubbapd & done 
 into a Book by the 
 Royci*oftei*$attbe 
 Shop, tobicb is in 
 EastJhntot*a,neu> 
 Yonk,fl. D. 1903 
 
THE chief difference between a wise man and an ignorant one is, 
 not that the first is acquainted with regions invisible to the sec 
 ond, away from common sight and interest, but that he understands 
 the common things which the second only sees. 
 
 SIGHT AND INSIGHT. 
 
STARR KING 
 
 89 
 
 |F you had chanced to live in Boston in 
 the early Nineties, alert for all good 
 things in a mental and spiritual way, 
 you would have made the Sundays sa 
 cred to Minot Savage, Phillips Brooks 
 and Edward Everett Hale. 
 Emerson says that if you know a clergy 
 man s sect and behold his livery, in 
 spite of all his show of approaching the 
 subject without prejudice, you know be 
 forehand exactly to what conclusions he 
 will come. This is what robs most ser 
 mons of their interest. Preaching, like 
 humor, must have in it the element of 
 surprise. I remember with what a thrill 
 of delight I would sit and watch Minot 
 Savage unwind his logic and then gently 
 weave it into a fabric. The man was not 
 afraid to follow a reason to its lair. He 
 had a way of saying the thing for the first 
 time it came as a personal message, 
 contradicting, possibly, all that had been 
 said before on the subject, oblivious of 
 precedent. 
 
 I once saw a man with a line around his 
 waist leap from a stranded ship into the 
 sea, and strike out boldly for the shore. 
 The thrill of admiration for the act was 
 unforgetable. 
 
go STARR KING 
 
 The joy of beholding a strong and valiant thinker 
 plunge into a theme is an event. Will he make the 
 shore? or will he go down to defeat before these 
 thousands of spectators ? 
 
 When Minot Savage ceased to speak, you knew he 
 had won he had brought the line safely to shore and 
 made all secure. 
 
 Or, if you have heard Rabbi Hirsch or Felix Adler, you 
 know the feeling. These men make a demand upon 
 you you play out the line for them, and when all is 
 secure, there is a relief which shows you have been 
 under an intense strain. To paraphrase Browning, 
 they offer no substitute, to an idle man, for a cushioned 
 chair and cigar. 
 
 Phillips Brooks made small demand upon his auditors. 
 If I heard Minot Savage in the morning and got wound 
 up tight, as I always did, I went to Vespers at Trin 
 ity Church for rest. 
 
 The soft, sweet playing of the organ, the subdued 
 lights, the far-away voices of the choir, and finally the 
 earnest words of the speaker, worked a psychic spell. 
 The sermon began nowhere and ended nowhere the 
 speaker was a great, gentle personality, with a heart 
 of love for everybody and everything. We have heard 
 of the old lady who would go miles to hear her pastor 
 pronounce the word Mesopotamia, but he put no more 
 soul into it than did Phillips Brooks. The service was 
 all a sort of lullaby for tired souls healing and helpful. 
 Q But as after every indulgence there comes a minor 
 
STARR KING 91 
 
 strain of dissatisfaction following the awakening, so it 
 was here it was beautiful while it lasted. Then eight 
 o clock would come and I would be at Edward Ever 
 ett Hale s. This sturdy old man -with his towering 
 form, rugged face and echoing bass voice, would open 
 up the stops and give his blessed " Mesopotamia " like 
 a trumpet-call. He never worked the soft pedal. His 
 first words always made me think of " Boots and Sad 
 dles ! " Be a man do something. Why stand ye here 
 all the day idle ! 
 
 And there was love and entreaty, too, but it never 
 lulled you into forgetfulness. There was intellect, but 
 it did not ask you to follow it. The dear old man did 
 not wind in and out among the sinuosities of thought 
 no, he was right out on the broad prairie, under the 
 open sky, sounding " Boots and Saddles!" 
 In Dr. Hale s church is a most beautiful memorial 
 window to Thomas Starr King, who was at one time 
 the pastor of this church. I remember Dr. Hale once 
 rose and pointing to that window, said, " That window 
 is in memory of a man ! But how vain a window, how 
 absurd a monument if the man had not left his impress 
 upon the hearts of humanity ! That beautiful window 
 only mirrors our memories of the individual." 
 And then Dr. Hale talked, just talked for an hour 
 about Starr King. 
 
 Dr. Hale has given that same talk or sermon every 
 year for thirty years : I have heard it three times, but 
 never twice exactly alike. I have tried to get a printed 
 
92 STARR KING 
 
 copy of the address, but have so far failed. Yet this is 
 sure: you cannot hear Dr. Hale tell of Starr King 
 without a feeling that King was a most royal speci 
 men of humanity, and a wish down deep in your 
 heart that you, too, might reflect some of the sterling 
 virtues that he possessed. 
 
 STARR KING died in California in 1864. In Golden 
 Gate Park, San Francisco, is his statue in bronze. 
 In the First Unitarian Church of San Francisco 
 is a tablet to his memory ; in the Unitarian Church at 
 Oakland are many loving tokens to his personality; 
 and in the State House at Sacramento is his portrait 
 and an engrossed copy of resolutions passed by the 
 Legislature at the time of his death, wherein he is re 
 ferred to as "the man whose matchless oratory saved 
 California to the Union." 
 
 "Who was Starr King?" I once asked Dr. Charles H. 
 Leonard of Tufts College. And the saintly old man 
 lifted his eyes as if in prayer of thankfulness and an 
 swered, " Starr King ! Starr King ! He was the gentlest 
 and strongest, the most gifted soul I ever knew I 
 bless God that I lived just to know Starr King! " 
 Not long after this I asked the same question of Dr. C. 
 A. Bartol that I had asked Dr. Leonard, and the reply 
 was, "He was a man who proved the possible in 
 point of temper and talent, the most virile personality 
 that New England has produced. We call Webster 
 
STARR KING 93 
 
 our greatest orator, but this man surpassed Webster: 
 he had a smile that was a benediction ; a voice that 
 was a caress. We admired Webster, but Starr King 
 we loved : one convinced our reason, the other cap 
 tured our hearts." 
 
 THE Oriental custom of presenting a thing to the 
 friend who admires it, symbols a very great 
 truth. If you love a thing well enough, you 
 make it yours jf jf 
 
 Culture is a matter of desire ; knowledge is to be had 
 for the asking; and education is yours if you want it. 
 All men should have a college education in order that 
 they may know its worthlessness. George William 
 Curtis was a very prince of gentlemen, and as an ora 
 tor he won by his manner and by his gentle voice fully 
 as much as by the orderly procession of his thoughts. 
 C{"O, what is it in me that makes me tremble so at 
 voices ! Whoever speaks to me in the right voice, him 
 or her will I follow," says Walt Whitman. 
 If you have ever loved a woman and you care to go 
 back to May-time and try to analyze the why and the 
 wherefore, you probably will not be able to locate the 
 why and the wherefore, but this negative truth you 
 will discover : you were not won by logic. Of course 
 you admired the woman s intellect it sort of matched 
 your own, and in loving her you complimented your 
 self, for thus by love and admiration do we prove our 
 
94 STARR KING 
 
 kinship with the thing loved. QBut intellect alone is 
 too cold to fuse the heart. Something else is required, 
 and for lack of a better word we call it " personality." 
 This glowing, winning personality that inspires confi 
 dence and trust is a bouquet of virtues, the chief flower 
 of which is Right Intent honesty may be a bit old- 
 fashioned, but do not try to leave it out. 
 George William Curtis and Starr King had a frank, 
 wide-open, genuine quality that disarmed prejudice 
 right at the start. And both were big enough so that 
 they never bemoaned the fact that Fate had sent them 
 to the University of Hard Knocks instead of matricu 
 lating them at Harvard. 
 
 I once heard George "William Curtis speak at St. James 
 Hall, Buffalo, on Civil Service Reform a most appal 
 ling subject with which to hold a " popular audience." 
 He was introduced by the Hon. Sherman S. Rogers, a 
 man who was known for ten miles up the creek as the 
 greatest orator in Erie County. After the speech of 
 introduction, Curtis stepped to the front, laid on the 
 reading-desk a bundle of manuscript, turned one page, 
 and began to talk. He talked for two hours, and never 
 once again referred to his manuscript we thought he 
 had forgotten it. He himself tells somewhere of Ed 
 ward Everett doing the same. It is fine to have a 
 thing and still show that you do not need it. The style 
 of Curtis was in such marked contrast to the blue- 
 grass article represented by Rogers, that it seemed a 
 rebuke. One was florid, declamatory, strong, full ot 
 
STARR KING 95 
 
 reasons : the other was keyed low it was so melodi 
 ous, so gently persuasive that we were thrown off our 
 guard and did n t know we had imbibed rank heresy 
 until we were told so the next day by a man who was 
 not there. As the speaker closed, an old lady seated 
 near me, sighed softly, adjusted her paisley shawl and 
 said, "That was the finest address I ever heard, ex 
 cepting one given in this very hall in 1859 by Starr 
 King." & & 
 
 And I said, "Well, a speech that you can remember 
 for twenty-five years must have been a good one!" 
 Q"It wasn t the address so much as the man," an 
 swered this mother in Israel, and she heaved another 
 small sigh. Q And therein did the good old lady drop a 
 confession. I doubt me much whether any woman 
 will remember any speech for a week she just re 
 members the man. 
 
 And this applies pretty nearly as much to men, too. Is 
 there sex in spirit ? Hardly. Thoreau says the character 
 of Jesus was essentially feminine. Herbert Spencer 
 avers, " The high intuitive quality which we call genius 
 is largely feminine in character." " Starr King was the 
 child of his mother, and his best qualities were femi 
 nine," said the Rev. E. H. Chapin. 
 
 "When Starr King s father died the boy was fifteen. 
 There were five younger children and Starr was made 
 man of the house by Destiny s acclaim. Responsibility 
 ripens. This slim, slender youth became a man in a 
 
96 STARR KING 
 
 day. ({The father had been the pastor of the Charles- 
 town Universalist Church. I suppose it is hardly nec 
 essary to take a page and prove that this clergyman in 
 an unpopular church did not leave a large fortune to 
 his family. In truth, he left a legacy of debts. Starr 
 King, the boy of fifteen, left school and became clerk 
 in a dry goods store. The mother cared for her house 
 hold and took in sewing. 
 
 Joshua Bates, master of the Winthrop school, de 
 scribes Starr King as he was when the father s death 
 cut off his school days : " Slight of build, golden haired,, 
 active, agile, with a homely face which everybody 
 thought was handsome on account of the beaming 
 eyes, the winning smile and the earnest desire of al 
 ways wanting to do what was best and right." 
 This kind of a boy gets along all right anywhere God 
 is on his side. The hours in the dry goods store were 
 long, and on Saturday nights it was nearly midnight 
 before Starr would reach home. But there was a light 
 in the window for him, even if whale oil was scarce ; 
 and the mother was at her sewing. Together they ate 
 their midnight lunch, and counted the earnings of the 
 week iff 0- 
 
 And the surprise of both that they were getting a liv 
 ing and paying off the debts sort of cleared the atmos 
 phere of its gloom. 
 
 In Burke s " Essay on the Sublime," he speaks of the 
 quiet joy that comes through calamity when we dis 
 cover that the calamity has not really touched us. The 
 
STARR KING 97 
 
 death of a father who leaves a penniless widow and a 
 hungry brood, comes at first as a shock the heavens 
 are darkened and hope has fled. 
 
 I know a man who was in a railroad wreck the 
 sleeping-car in which he rode left the track and rolled 
 down an embankment. There was a black interval of 
 horror, and then this man found himself, clad in his 
 tinder-clothes, standing on the upturned car, looking 
 up at the Pleiades and this thought in his mind, " "What 
 beauty and peace are in these winter heavens!" The 
 calamity had come he was absolutely untouched he 
 was locating the constellations and surprised and 
 happy in his ability to enjoy them. 
 Starr King and his mother sipped their midnight tea 
 and grew jolly over the thought of their comfortable 
 home ; they were clothed and fed, the children well 
 and sleeping soundly in baby abandon up-stairs, the 
 debts were being paid. They laughed, did this mother 
 and son, really laughed aloud, when only a month be 
 fore they had thought that only gloom and misery 
 could ever again be theirs. 
 They laughed ! 
 
 And soon the young man s salary was increased 
 people liked to trade with him customers came and 
 asked that he might wait on them. He sold more goods 
 than any one in his department, and yet he never 
 talked things onto people. He was alert, affable, kindly, 
 and anticipated the wishes and wants of his customers 
 without being subservient, fawning or domineering. 
 
98 STARR KING 
 
 Q This kind of a helper is needed everywhere the one 
 who gives a willing hand, who puts soul into his ser 
 vice, who brings a glow of good-cheer into all of his 
 relations with men. 
 
 The doing things with a hearty enthusiasm is often 
 what makes the doer a marked person and his deeds 
 effective. The most ordinary service is dignified when 
 it is performed in that spirit. Every employer wants 
 those who work for him to put heart and mind into the 
 toil. He soon picks out those whose souls are in their 
 service, and gives them evidence of his appreciation. 
 They do not need constant watching. He can trust 
 them in his absence, and so the places of honor and 
 profit naturally gravitate to them. 
 
 The years went by, and one fine day Starr King was 
 twenty years of age. All of the debts were paid, the 
 children were going to school, and mother and son 
 faced the world from the vantage ground of success. 
 Starr had quit the dry goods trade and gone to teach 
 ing school on less salary, so as to get more leisure for 
 study <r <T 
 
 Incidentally he kept books at the Navy Yard. 
 About this time Theodore Parker wrote to a friend in 
 Maiden, " I cannot come to preach for you as I would 
 like, but with your permission I will send Thomas 
 Starr King. This young man is not a regularly ordained 
 preacher, but he has the grace of God in his heart, and 
 the gift of tongues. He is a rare sweet spirit, and I 
 know that after you have met him you will thank me 
 
STARR KING 99 
 
 for sending him to you." QThen soon we hear of 
 Starr King s being invited to Medford to give a Fourth 
 of July oration, and also of his speaking in the Uni- 
 versalist churches at Cambridge, Waltham, Water- 
 town, Hingham and Salem sent to these places by 
 Dr. E. H. Chapin, pastor of the Charlestown Univer- 
 salist Church, and successor to the Rev. Thomas F. 
 King, father of Starr King. 
 
 Starr seems to have served as sort of an assistant to 
 Chapin, and thereby revealed his talent and won the 
 heart of the great man. Edwin Hubbell Chapin was 
 only ten years older than Starr King, and at that time 
 had not really discovered himself, but in discovering 
 another he found himself. Twenty years later Beecher 
 and Chapin were to rival each other for first place as 
 America s greatest pulpit orator. These men were al 
 ways fast friends, yet when they met at convention or 
 conference folks came for miles to see the fire fly. 
 " Where are you going? * once asked Beecher of 
 Chapin when they met by chance on Broadway. 
 "Where am I going?" repeated Chapin, "why, if 
 you are right in what you preach, you know where I 
 am going." But only a few years were to pass before 
 Chapin said in public in Beecher s presence, "I am 
 jealous of Mr. Beecher he preaches a better Univer- 
 salist sermon than I can." Chapin made his mark upon 
 the time : his sermons read as though they were written 
 yesterday, and carry with them a deal of the swing 
 and onward sweep that are usually lost when the 
 
ioo STARR KING 
 
 orator attempts to write. But if Chapin had done noth 
 ing else but discover Starr King, the dry goods clerk, 
 rescue him from the clutch of commerce and back him 
 on the orator s platform, he deserves the gratitude of 
 generations. And all this I say as a business man who 
 fully recognizes that commerce is just as honorable 
 and a deal more necessary than oratory. But there 
 were other men to sell thread and calico, and God had 
 special work for Thomas Starr King. 
 Chapin was a graduate of Bennington Seminary, the 
 school that also graduated the father of Robert Inger- 
 soll. On Chapin s request Theodore Parker, himself a 
 Harvard man, sent Starr King over to Cambridge to 
 preach. Boston was a college town filled with college 
 traditions, and when one thinks of sending out this 
 untaught stripling to address college men, we cannot 
 but admire the temerity of both Chapin and Parker. 
 "He has never attended a Divinity School," writes 
 Chapin to Deacon Obadiah B. Queer of Quincy, "but 
 he is educated just the same. He speaks Greek, He 
 brew, French, German, and fairly good English, as 
 you will see. He knows natural history and he knows 
 humanity; and if one knows man and Nature, he 
 comes pretty close to knowing God." 
 Where did this dry goods clerk get his education ? Ah, 
 I 11 tell you he got his education as the lion s whelp 
 gets his. The lioness does not send her cubs away to a 
 lioness that has no cubs in order that he may be 
 taught. The lion-nature gets what it needs with its 
 
STARR KING 
 
 mother s milk and by doing. Q Schools and colleges 
 are cumbrous make-shifts, often forcing truth on pu 
 pils out of season, and thus making lessons grievous. 
 "The soul knows all things," says Emerson, "and 
 knowledge is only a remembering." " When the time 
 is ripe, men know," wrote Hegel. At the last we can 
 not teach anything nothing is imparted. We cannot 
 make the plants and flowers grow all we can do is 
 to supply the conditions, and God does the rest. In 
 education we can only supply the conditions for growth 
 we cannot impart, nor force the germs to unfold. 
 Q Starr King s mother was his teacher. Together they 
 read good books, and discussed great themes. She read 
 for him and he studied for her. She did not treat him 
 as a child things that interested her she told to him. 
 The sunshine of her soul was reflected upon his, and 
 thus did he grow. I know a woman whose children 
 will be learned, even though they never enter a school 
 room. This woman is a companion to her children and 
 her mind vitalizes theirs. This does not mean that we 
 should at once do away with schools and colleges, but 
 it does reveal the possible. To read and then discuss 
 with a strong and sympathetic intellect what you read 
 is to make the thought your own it is a form of ex 
 ercise that brings growth. 
 
 Starr King s mother was not a wonderful nor famous 
 person I find no mention of her in Society s Doings 
 of the day nothing of her dress or equipage. If she 
 was "superbly gowned," we do not know it; if she 
 
STARR KING 
 
 was ever one of the "unbonneted," history is silent. 
 All we know is, that together they read Bullfinch s 
 Mythology, Grote s History of Greece, Plutarch, 
 Dante and Shakespeare. We know that she placed a 
 light in the window for him to make his home-coming 
 cheerful, that together they sipped their midnight tea, 
 that together they laughed, and sometimes wept but 
 not for long. 
 
 IN 1846 Chapin was thirty-two years old. Starr King 
 was twenty-two. A call had reached Chapin to 
 come up higher ; but he refused to leave the old 
 church at Charlestown unless Starr King was to suc 
 ceed him. To place a young man in the position of 
 pastor where he has sat in the pews, his feet not 
 reaching the floor, is most trying. Starr King knew 
 every individual man, woman and child in the church, 
 and they had known him since babyhood. In appear 
 ance he was but a boy, and the dignity that is sup 
 posed to send conviction home was entirely wanting. 
 C But Chapin had his way and the boy was duly or 
 dained and installed as pastor of the First Universalist 
 Church of Charlestown. 
 
 The new pastor fully expected his congregation to 
 give him "absent treatment," but instead, the audi 
 ence grew folks even came over from Boston to hear 
 the boy preacher. His sermons were carefully written, 
 and dealt in the simple, everyday lessons of life. To 
 
STARR KING 103 
 
 Starr King this world is paradise enow; it s the best 
 place of which we know, and the way for man to help 
 himself is to try and make it a better place. There is 
 a flavor of Theodore Parker in those early sermons, a 
 trace of Thoreau and much tincture of Emerson and 
 all this was to the credit of the boy preacher. His 
 woman s mind absorbed things. 
 
 About that time Boston was in very fact the intellec 
 tual hub of America. Emerson was forty-three, his 
 "Nature" had been published anonymously, and al 
 though it took eight years to sell this edition of five 
 hundred copies, the author was in demand as a lec 
 turer, and in some places society conceded him re 
 spectable. Wendell Phillips was addressing audiences 
 that alternately applauded and jeered. Thoreau had 
 discovered the Merrimac & explored Walden Woods ; 
 little Dr. Holmes was peregrinating in his One Hoss 
 Shay, vouchsafing the confidences of his boarding 
 house; Lowell was beginning to violate the rules of 
 rhetoric ; Whittier was making his plea for the runa 
 way slave; and throughout New England the Lecture 
 Lyceum was feeling its way. 
 
 A lecture course was then no vaudeville five con 
 certs and two lectures to take off the curse not that ! 
 The speakers supplied strong meat for men. The stars 
 in the lyceum sky were Emerson, Chapin, Beecher, 
 Holmes, Bartol, Phillips, Ballou, Everett, and Lowell. 
 These men made the New England Lyceum a vast 
 pulpit of free speech and advanced thought. And to a 
 
"4 STARR KING 
 
 degree the Lyceum made these men what they were. 
 They influenced the times and were influenced by the 
 times. They were in competition with each other. A 
 pace had been set, a record made, and the audiences 
 that gathered expected much. An audience gets just 
 what it deserves and no more. If you have listened to 
 a poor speech, blame yourself. 
 
 In the life of George Francis Train, he tells that in 
 1840 Emerson spoke in Waltham for five dollars and 
 four quarts of oats for his horse now he received 
 twenty-five dollars. Chapin got the same, and when 
 the Committee could not afford this, he referred them 
 to Starr King, who would lecture for five dollars and 
 supply his own horse-feed. 
 
 Two years went by and calls came for Starr King to 
 come up higher. Worcester would double his salary 
 if he would take a year s course at the Harvard Divin 
 ity school. Starr showed the letter to Chapin, and both 
 laughed. Worcester was satisfied with Starr King as 
 he was, but what would Springfield say if they called 
 a man who had no theological training? And then it 
 was that Chapin said, "Divinity is not taught in the 
 Harvard Divinity School," which sounds like a para 
 phrase of Ernest Kenan s, " You will find God any 
 where but in a theological seminary." 
 King declined the call to Worcester, but harkened to 
 one from the Hollis Street Church of Boston. He went 
 over from Universalism to Unitarianism and still re 
 mained a Universalist and this created quite a dust 
 
STARR KING 105 
 
 among the theologs. Little men love their denomi 
 nation with a jealous love truth is secondary they 
 see microscopic difference where big men behold only 
 unity *r *T 
 
 It was about this time that Starr King pronounced this 
 classic: "The difference between Universalism and 
 Unitarianism is that Universalists believe that God is 
 too good to damn them; and the Unitarians believe 
 that they are too good to be damned." 
 At the Hollis Street Church this stripling of twenty- 
 four now found himself being compared with the fore 
 most preachers of America. And the man grew with 
 his work, rising to the level of events. It was at the 
 grave of Oliver Wendell Holmes that Edward Ever 
 ett Hale said: " The five men who have influenced the 
 literary and intellectual thought of America most, be 
 lieved in their own divinity no less than in the divin 
 ity of Jesus of Nazareth." 
 
 The destiny of the liberal church is not to become 
 strong and powerful, but to make all other denomina 
 tions more liberal. When Chapin accused Beecher of 
 preaching Universalist sermons, it was a home thrust, 
 because Beecher would never have preached such 
 sermons had not Murray, Ballou, Theodore Parker, 
 Chapin, and Starr King done so first and Beecher 
 supplied the goods called for. 
 
 Starr King s voice was deep, melodious and far-reach 
 ing, and it was not an acquired " Bishop s voice " it 
 was his own. The biggest basso I ever heard was just 
 
io6 STARR KING 
 
 five feet high and weighed one hundred and twenty in 
 his stockings ; Brignoli, the tenor, weighed two hun 
 dred and forty. Avoirdupois as a rule lessens the vol 
 ume of the voice and heightens the register you can t 
 have both adipose and chest tone. "Webster and Starr 
 King had voices very much alike, and "Webster, by 
 the way, was n t the big man physically that the school 
 readers proclaim. It was his gigantic head and the 
 royal way he carried himself that made the Liverpool 
 stevedores say, "There goes the King of America." 
 Q There was no pomposity about Starr King. Dr. Bar- 
 tol has said that when King lectured in a new town 
 his homely, boyish face always caused a small spasm 
 of disappointment, or merriment, to sweep over the 
 audience. But when he spoke he was a transformed 
 being, and his deep, mellow voice would hush the 
 most inveterate whisperers. 
 
 For eleven years Starr King remained pastor of the 
 Hollis Street Church. During the last years of his pas 
 torate he was much in demand as a lecturer, and his 
 voice was heard in all the principal cities as far west 
 as Chicago jf & 
 
 His lecture, " Substance and Show," deserves to rank 
 with Wendell Phillips "The Lost Arts." In truth it 
 is very much like Phillips lecture. In "The Lost 
 Arts" Phillips tells in easy conversational way of the 
 wonderful things that once existed; and Starr King 
 relates in the same manner the story of some of the 
 -wonderful things that are right here and all around us. 
 
STARR KING 107 
 
 It reveals the mind of the man, his manner and thought, 
 as well as any of his productions. The great speech is 
 an evolution, and this lecture, given many times in 
 the Eastern States under various titles, did not touch 
 really high-water mark until King reached California 
 and had cut loose from manuscript and tradition. An 
 extract seems in order : 
 
 Most persons, doubtless, if you place before them a 
 paving-stone and a slip of paper with some writing on 
 it, would not hesitate to say that there is as much 
 more substance in the rock than in the paper as there 
 is heaviness. Yet they might make a great mistake. 
 Suppose that the slip of paper contains the sentence, 
 " God is love " ; or, " Thou shalt love thy neighbor as 
 thyself"; or, "All men have moral rights by reason 
 of heavenly parentage," then the paper represents 
 more force and substance than the stone. Heaven and 
 earth may pass away, but such words can never die 
 out or become less real. 
 
 The word "substance" means that which stands un 
 der and supports anything else. "Whatever then cre 
 ates, upholds, classifies anything which our senses 
 behold, though we cannot handle, see, taste, or smell 
 it, is more substantial than the object itself. In this 
 way the soul which vivifies, moves, and supports the 
 body, is a more potent substance than the hard bones 
 and heavy flesh which it vitalizes. A ten-pound weight 
 falling on your head affects you unpleasantly as sub 
 stance, much more so than a leaf of the New Testa 
 ment, if dropped in the same direction ; but there is a 
 way in which a page of the New Testament may fall 
 upon a nation and split it, or infuse itself into its bulk 
 and give it strength and permanence. We should be 
 
STARR KING 
 
 careful, therefore, what test we adopt in order to de 
 cide the relative stability of things. 
 There is a very general tendency to deny that ideal 
 forces have any practical power. But there have been 
 several thinkers whose scepticism has an opposite 
 direction. " We cannot," they say, " attribute external 
 reality to the sensations we feel." We need not "won 
 der that this theory has failed to convince the unmet- 
 aphysical common sense of people that a stone post is 
 merely a stubborn thought, and that the bite of a dog 
 is nothing but an acquaintance with a pugnacious, 
 four-footed conception. When a man falls down stairs 
 it is not easy to convince him that his thought simply 
 tumbles along an inclined series of perceptions and 
 comes to a conclusion that breaks his head ; least of 
 all, can you induce a man to believe that the scolding 
 of his wife is nothing but the buzzing of his own wasp 
 ish thoughts, and her too free use of his purse only the 
 loss of some golden fancies from his memory. We are 
 all safe against such idealism as Bishop Berkeley rea 
 soned out so logically. Byron s refutation of it is neat 
 and witty : 
 
 When Bishop Berkeley says there is no matter, 
 It is no matter what Bishop Berkeley says. 
 
 And yet, by more satisfactory evidence than that which 
 the idealists propose, we are warned against confound 
 ing the conception of substance with matter, and con 
 fining it to things we can see and grasp. Science steps 
 in and shows us that the physical system of things 
 leans on spirit. We talk of the world of matter, but 
 there is no such world. Everything about us is a mix 
 ture or marriage of matter and spirit. A world of mat 
 ter there would be no motion, no force, no form, no 
 order, no beauty, in the universe as it now is ; organ 
 ization meets us at every step and wherever we look; 
 
STARR KING 109 
 
 organization implies spirit, something that rules, dis 
 poses, penetrates and vivifies matter. 
 See what a sermon astronomy preaches as to the sub 
 stantial power of invisible things. If the visible universe 
 is so stupendous, what shall -we think of the unseen 
 force and vitality in whose arms all its splendors 
 rest? It is no gigantic Atlas, as the Greeks fancied, 
 that upholds the celestial sphere ; all the constella 
 tions are kept from falling by an impalpable energy 
 that uses no muscles and no masonry. The ancient 
 mathematician, Archimedes, once said, "Give me a 
 foot of ground outside the globe to stand upon, and I 
 will make a lever that will lift the world." The invisi 
 ble lever of gravitation, however, without any fulcrum 
 or purchase, does lift the globe, and makes it waltz, 
 too, with its blonde lunar partner, twelve hundred 
 miles a minute to the music of the sun, ay, and heaves 
 sun and systems and Milky Way in majestic cotillions 
 on its ethereal floor. 
 
 You grasp an iron ball, and call it hard ; it is not the 
 iron that is hard, but cohesive force that packs the 
 particles of metal into intense sociability. Let the force 
 abate, and the same metal becomes like mush; let it 
 disappear, and the ball is a heap of powder which 
 your breath scatters in the air. If the cohesive energy 
 in nature should get tired and unclench its grasp of 
 matter, our earth would instantly become "a great 
 slump"; so that which we tread on is not material 
 substance, but matter braced up by a spiritual sub 
 stance, for which it serves as the form and show. 
 All the peculiarities of rock and glass, diamond, ice 
 and crystal, are due to the working of unseen military 
 forces that employ themselves under ground, in cav 
 erns, beneath rivers, in mountain crypts, and through 
 the coldest nights, drilling companies of atoms into 
 
o STARR KING 
 
 crystalline battalions and squares, and every caprice 
 of a fantastic order. 
 
 When we turn to the vegetable kingdom, is not the 
 revelation still more wonderful ? The forms which we 
 see grow out of substances and are supported by forces 
 which we do not see. The stuff out of which all vege 
 table appearances are made is reducible to oxygen, 
 hydrogen, carbon and nitrogen. How does it happen 
 that this common stock is worked up in such different 
 ways ? Why is a lily woven out of it in one place and 
 a dahlia in another, a grape-vine here, and a honey 
 suckle there, the orange in Italy, the palm in Egypt, 
 the olive in Greece, and the pine in Maine? Simply 
 because a subtile force of a peculiar kind is at work 
 wherever any vegetable structure adorns the ground, 
 and takes to itself its favorite robe. We have outgrown 
 the charming fancy of the Greeks that every tree has 
 its Dryad that lives in it, animates it, and dies when 
 the tree withers. But we ought, for the truth s sake, 
 to believe that a life-spirit inhabits every flower and 
 shrub, and protects it against the prowling forces of 
 destruction. Look at a full-sized oak, the rooted Levi 
 athan of the fields. Judging by your senses and by the 
 scales, you would say that the substance of the noble 
 tree was its bulk of bark and bough and branch and 
 leaves and sap, the cords of woody and moist matter 
 that compose it and make it heavy. But really its sub 
 stance is that which makes it an oak, that which weaves 
 its bark and glues it to the stem, and wraps its rings 
 of fresh wood around the trunk every year, and pushes 
 out its boughs and clothes its twigs with breathing 
 leaves and sucks up nutriment from the soil continu 
 ally, and makes the roots clench the ground with their 
 fibrous fingers as a purchase against the storm, and at 
 last holds aloft its tons of matter against the constant 
 
STARR KING i 
 
 tug and wrath of gravitation, and swings its Briarean 
 arms in triumph, in defiance of the gale. Were it not 
 for this energetic essence that crouches in the acorn 
 and stretches its limbs every year, there would be no 
 oak; the matter that clothes it would enjoy its stupid 
 slumber; and when the forest monarch stands up in 
 his sinewy lordliest pride, let the pervading life-power, 
 and its vassal forces that weigh nothing at all, be an 
 nihilated, and the whole structure would wither in a 
 second to inorganic dust. So every gigantic fact in na 
 ture is the index and vesture of a gigantic force. 
 Everything which we call organization that spots the 
 landscape of nature is a revelation of secret force that 
 has been wedded to matter, and if the spiritual powers 
 that have thus domesticated themselves around us 
 should be cancelled, the whole planet would be a huge 
 Desert of Sahara, a bleak sand-ball without shrub, 
 grass-blade, or moss. 
 
 As we rise in the scale of forces towards greater sub- 
 tility the forces become more important and efficient. 
 Water is more intimately concerned with life than 
 rock, air higher in the rank of service than water, 
 electric and magnetic agencies more powerful than 
 air: and light, the most delicate, is the supreme magi 
 cian of all. Just think how much expenditure of me 
 chanical strength is necessary to water a city in the 
 hot summer months. What pumping and tugging and 
 wearisome trudging of horses with the great sprinklers 
 over the tedious pavement ! But see by what beautiful 
 and noiseless force nature waters the world ! The sun 
 looks steadily on the ocean, and its beams lift lakes of 
 water into the air, tossing it up thousands of feet with 
 their delicate fingers, and carefully picking every grain 
 of salt from it before they let it go. No granite reser 
 voirs are needed to hold in the Cochituates and Cro- 
 
STARR KING 
 
 tons of the atmosphere, but the soft outlines of the 
 clouds hem in the vast weight of the upper tides that 
 are to cool the globe, and the winds harness themselves 
 as steeds to the silken caldrons and hurry them along 
 through space, while they disburse their rivers of 
 moisture from their great height so lightly that seldom 
 a violet is crushed by the rudeness with which the 
 stream descends. 
 
 Our conceptions of strength and endurance are so as 
 sociated with visible implements and mechanical ar 
 rangements that it is hard to divorce them, and yet the 
 stream of electric fire that splits an ash is not a pon 
 derable thing, and the way in which the loadstone 
 reaches the ten-pound weight and makes it jump is not 
 perceptible. You would think the man had pretty good 
 molars that should gnaw a spike like a stick of candy, 
 but a bottle of innocent-looking hydrogen gas will 
 chew up a piece of bar-iron as though it were some 
 favorite Cavendish. 
 
 The prominent lesson of science to men, therefore, is 
 faith in the intangible and invisible. Shall we talk of 
 matter as the great reality of the world, the prominent 
 substance ? It is nothing but the battle-ground of ter 
 rific forces. Every particle of matter, the chemists tell 
 us, is strained up to its last degree of endurance. The 
 glistening bead of dew from which the daisy gently 
 nurses its strength, and which a sunbeam may dissi 
 pate, is the globular compromise of antagonistic powers 
 that would shake this building in their unchained rage. 
 And so every atom of matter is the slave of imperious 
 masters that never let it alone. It is nursed and ca 
 ressed, next bandied about, and soon cuffed and kicked 
 by its invisible overseers. Poor atoms! no abolition 
 societies will ever free them from their bondage, no 
 colonization movement waft them to any physical 
 
STARR KING 113 
 
 Liberia. For every particle of matter is bound by eter 
 nal fealty to some spiritual lords, to be pinched by 
 one and squeezed by another and torn asunder by a 
 third ; now to be painted by this and now blistered by 
 that ; now tormented with heat and soon chilled with 
 cold ; hurried from the Arctic Circle to sweat at the 
 Equator, and then sent on an errand to the Southern 
 Pole ; forced through transmigrations of fish, fowl and 
 flesh ; and, if in some corner of creation the poor thing 
 finds leisure to die, searched out and whipped to life 
 again and kept in its constant round. 
 Thus the stuff that we weigh, handle and tread upon 
 is only the show of invisible substances, the facts over 
 which subtle and mighty forces rule. 
 
 STARR KING was that kind of a plant which needs 
 to be repotted in order to make it flower at its 
 best. Events kept tugging to loosen his tendrils 
 from his early environments. People who live on Bos 
 ton Bay like to remain there. We have all heard of the 
 good woman who died and went to Heaven, and after 
 a short sojourn there was asked how she liked it, and 
 she sighed and said, "Ah, yes, it is very beautiful, but 
 it is n t East Somerville ! " 
 
 Had Starr King consented to remain in Boston he 
 might have held his charge against the ravages of 
 time, secreted a curate, taken on a becoming buffer of 
 adipose, and glided off by imperceptible degrees on to 
 the Superannuated List. 
 But early in that historic month of April, 1860, he set 
 
ii4 STARR KING 
 
 sail for California, having accepted a call from the 
 First Unitarian Church of San Francisco. This was 
 his first trip to the Pacific Coast, but New England 
 people had preceded him, and not being able to return, 
 they wanted Boston to come to them. The journey 
 was made by the way of Panama, without any special 
 event. The pilot who met the ship outside of Golden 
 Gate bore them the first news that Sumter had been 
 fired upon, and the bombardment was at the time 
 when the ship that bore Starr King was only a few 
 miles from South Carolina s coast. 
 With prophetic vision Starr King saw the struggle 
 that was to come, and the words of Webster, uttered 
 many years before, rushed to his lips : 
 
 When my eyes shall be turned to behold for the last 
 time the sun in heaven, may I not see him shining on 
 the broken and dishonored fragments of a once glori 
 ous Union ; on States dissevered, discordant, belliger 
 ent; on a land rent with civil feuds, or drenched, it 
 may be, in fraternal blood ! Let their last feeble and 
 lingering glance rather behold the gorgeous ensign of 
 the republic now known and honored throughout the 
 earth, still full high advanced, its arms and trophies 
 streaming in their original lustre, not a stripe erased 
 nor polluted, nor a single star obscured, bearing for its 
 motto no such miserable interrogatory as "What is 
 all this worth?" nor those other words of delusion 
 and folly, "Liberty first and Union afterwards"; but 
 everywhere, spread over all in characters of living 
 light, blazing on all its ample folds, as they float over 
 the sea and over the land, and in every wind under 
 
STARR KING 
 
 the -whole heavens, that other sentiment, dear to every 
 true American heart Liberty and Union, now and 
 forever, one and inseparable ! 
 
 The landing was made on Saturday, and the following 
 day Starr King spoke for the first time in California. 
 An hour before the service was to begin, the church 
 was wedged tight. The preacher had much difficulty 
 in making his way through the dense mass of humanity 
 to reach the pulpit. "Is that the man?" went up the 
 smothered exclamation, as Starr King reached the 
 platform and faced his audience. His slight, slender 
 figure and boyish face were plainly a disappointment, 
 but this was not to last. The preacher had prepared a 
 sermon such a sermon as he had given many times 
 to well-dressed, orderly and cultured Boston. 
 And if this California audience was surprised, the 
 speaker also was no less. The men to women were as 
 seven to one. He saw before him a sea of bronzed and 
 bearded faces, earnest, attentive and hungry for truth. 
 There were occasional marks of dissipation and the 
 riot of the senses, softened by excess into penitence 
 whipped out and homesick. Here were miners in red 
 flannel shirts, sailors, soldiers in uniform and soldiers 
 of fortune. The preacher looked at the motley mass in 
 a vain attempt to pick out his old friends from New 
 England. The genteel, slightly blase quality of culture 
 that leans back in its cushioned pew and courteously 
 waits to be instructed, was not there. These people 
 did not lean back, they leaned forward, and with parted 
 
ii6 STARR KING 
 
 lips they listened for every word. There was no choir, 
 and when "an old familiar hymn" was lined off by a 
 volunteer who knew his business, that audience arose 
 and sang as tho it would shake the rafters of heaven. 
 Q Those who go down to the sea in ships, sing; shep 
 herds who tend their flocks by night, sing; men in the 
 forest or those who follow the trackless plains, sing. 
 Congregational singing is most popular among those 
 who live far apart to get together and sing is a solace. 
 Loneliness, separation and heart hunger all drive men 
 into song & & 
 
 These men, many of them far from home, lifted up 
 their voices, and the sounds surged through that church 
 and echoed, surged again and caught even the preacher 
 in their winding waves. He started in to give one ser 
 mon and gave another. The audience, the time, the 
 place, acted upon him. 
 
 Oratory is essentially a pioneer product, a rustic ar 
 ticle. Great sermons and great speeches are only given 
 to people who have come from afar. 
 Starr King forgot his manuscript and pulpit manners. 
 His deep voice throbbed and pulsed with emotion, 
 and the tensity of the times was upon him. "Without 
 once referring directly to Sumter, his address was a 
 call to arms & jf 
 
 He spoke for an hour, and when he sat down he knew 
 that he had won. The next Sunday the place was again 
 packed, and then followed urgent invitations that he 
 should speak during the week in a larger hall. 
 
STARR KING 
 
 California was trembling in the balances, and orators 
 were not wanting to give out the arguments of Cal- 
 houn. They showed that the right of secession was 
 plainly provided for in the Constitution. Lincoln s call 
 for troops was coldly received, and from several San 
 Francisco pulpits orthodox clergymen were express 
 ing deep regret that the President was plunging the 
 country into civil war. 
 
 The heart of Starr King burned with shame to him 
 there was but one side to this question the Union 
 must be preserved. 
 
 One man who had known King in Massachusetts wrote 
 back home saying, " You would not know Starr King 
 he is not the orderly man of genteel culture you once 
 had in Boston. He is a torrent of eloquence, so heart 
 felt, so convincing, so powerful, that when he speaks 
 on Sunday afternoon out on the sand-hills, he excites 
 the multitude into a whirlwind of applause, with a 
 basso undertone of dissent which, however, seems to 
 grow gradually less." 
 
 Loyalty to the Union was to him the one vital issue. 
 His fight was not with individuals he made no per 
 sonal issues. And in several joint debates his courteous 
 treatment of his adversary won converts for his cause. 
 He took pains to say that personally he had only 
 friendship and pity for the individuals who upheld se 
 cession and slavery "The man in the wrong needs 
 friends as never before, since he has ceased to be his 
 own. Do we blame a blind man whom we see rushing 
 
STARR KING 
 
 towards a precipice?" QFrom that first Sunday he 
 preached in San Francisco, his life was an ovation 
 wherever he went. Wherever he was advertised to 
 speak, multitudes were there to hang upon his words. 
 He spoke in all the principal towns of California ; and 
 often on the plains, in the mountains, or by the sea 
 shore, men would gather from hundreds of miles to 
 hear him jf <f 
 
 He gave himself, and before he had been in California 
 a year, the state was safe for the Union, and men and 
 treasure were being sent to Lincoln s aid. The fame 
 of Starr King reached the President, and he found time 
 to write several letters to the orator, thanking him for 
 what he had done. It was in one of these letters that 
 Lincoln wrote, "The only sermons I have ever been 
 able to read and enjoy are those of John Murray," a 
 statement which some have attempted to smile away 
 as showing the Rail-splitter s astute diplomacy. 
 Starr King gave his life to the Cause. He as much died 
 for the Union as though he had fallen stricken by fly 
 ing lead upon the field. And he knew what he was do 
 ing, but in answer to his warning friends he said, " I 
 have only one life to live and now is my time to spend 
 it." QFor four years, lacking two months, he spoke 
 and preached several times every week. All he made 
 and all he was he freely gave. 
 
 For that frail frame this life of intensity had but one 
 end & *f 
 The Emancipation Proclamation had been issued, but 
 
STARR KING 
 
 119 
 
 Lee s surrender was yet to be. "May I live to see 
 unity and peace for my country," was his prayer. 
 Starr King died March 4th, 1864, aged forty years. The 
 closing words of his lecture on Socrates might -well 
 be applied to himself: 
 
 Down the river of Life, by its Athenian banks, he had 
 floated upon his raft of reason serene, in cloudy as in 
 smiling weather. And now the night is rushing down, 
 and he has reached the mouth of the stream, and the 
 great ocean is before him, dim heaving in the dusk. 
 But he betrays no fear. There is land ahead, he 
 thought; eternal continents there are, that rise in 
 constant light beyond the gloom. He trusted still in 
 the raft his soul had built, and with a brave farewell 
 to the true friends who stood by him on the shore, he 
 put out into the darkness, a moral Columbus, trusting 
 in his haven on the faith of an idea. 
 
HERE ENDETH THE LITTLE JOURNEY TO THE HOME 
 OF STARR KING, AS WRITTEN BY ELBERT HUBBARD. 
 BORDERS, INITIALS AND ORNAMENTS DESIGNED BY 
 ROYCROFT ARTISTS, PRESSWORK BY LOUIS SCHELL, 
 & THE WHOLE DONE INTO A BOOK BY THE ROYCROFT- 
 ERS AT THEIR SHOP, WHICH IS IN EAST AURORA, IN 
 THE MONTH OF OCTOBER, IN THE YEAR MCMIII * * * 
 

 TO THE HOMES OF EMINENT ORATORS 
 
 Vol. XIII. NOVEMBER, 1903. No. 5 
 
 By ELBERT HUBBARD 
 
 
 Single Copies, 25 cents By the Year, $3.00 
 
LITTLE JOURNEYS 
 
 TO THE HOMES OF 
 
 EMINENT ORATORS 
 
 By ELBERT HUBBARD 
 
 SUBJECTS AS FOLLOWS: 
 
 1 Pericles 7 Marat 
 
 2 Mark Antony 8 Robert Ingersoll 
 
 3 Savonarola g Patrick Henry 
 
 4 Martin Luther 10 Thomas Starr King 
 
 5 Edmund Burke n Henry Ward Beecher 
 
 6 William Pitt 12 Wendell Phillips 
 
 One booklet a month will be issued as usual, begin 
 ning on January I St. 
 
 The LITTLE JOURNEYS for 1903 will be strictly 
 de luxe in form and workmanship. The type will be a 
 new font of antique Jplackface; the initials "designed 
 especially for this work ; a frontispiece portrait from 
 the original drawing made at our Shop. The booklets 
 will be stitched by hand with silk. 
 The price 25 cents each, or $3.00 for the year. 
 
 Address THE ROYCROFTERS at their 
 Shop, which is at East Aurora, New York 
 
 Entered at the postomce at East Aurora, New York, for transmission 
 as second-class mail matter. Copyright, 1902, by Elbert Hubbard 
 
Little 06 
 3ouitneys 
 
 To the Homes of 
 
 EMINENT 
 ORATORS 
 
 LUitittcn by Elbcitt] 
 hi ubband & done 
 into a Book by the 
 RoycrcftcFS at the 
 Shop, lobicb i$ in 
 
 Yoitk,fl. D. 1903 
 
YOU know how the heart is subject to freshets; you know how the 
 mother, always loving her child, yet seeing in it some new wile 
 of affection, will catch it up and cover it with kisses and break forth 
 in a rapture of loving. Such a kind of heart-glow fell from the Saviour 
 upon that young man who said to him, " Good Master, what good 
 thing shall I do that I may inherit eternal life ? " It is said, " Then 
 Jesus, beholding him, loved him." 
 
Henry Ward Beeolier 
 
HENRY WARD BEECHER 121 
 
 |HE influence of Henry Ward Beecher 
 upon his time was marked. And now the 
 stream of his life is lost amid the ocean 
 of our being. As a single drop of aniline 
 in a barrel of water will tint the whole 
 mass, so has the entire American mind 
 been colored through the existence of 
 this one glowing personality. He placed 
 a new interpretation on religion, and we 
 are different people because he lived. 
 Q He was not constructive, not admin 
 istrative he wrote much, but as litera 
 ture his work has small claim on im 
 mortality. He was an orator, and the busi 
 ness of the orator is to inspire other men 
 to think and act for themselves. 
 Orators live but in memory. Their des 
 tiny is to be the sweet elusive fragrance 
 of oblivion the thyme and mignonette 
 of things that were. 
 
 The limitations in the all- round man 
 are by-products which are used by des 
 tiny in the making of orators. The well 
 ing emotions, the vivid imagination, the 
 forgetfulness of self, the abandon to feel 
 ing all these things in Wall Street are 
 spurious coin. No prudent man was ever 
 an orator no cautious man ever made 
 a multitude change its mind, when it 
 
122 HENRY WARD BEECHER 
 
 had vowed it would not. Q Oratory is indiscretion set 
 to music iff jf 
 
 The great orator is great on account of his weaknesses 
 as well as on account of his strength. So why should 
 we expect the orator to be the impeccable man of 
 perfect parts ? 
 
 These essays attempt to give the man they are 
 neither a vindication nor an apology. 
 Edmund Gosse has recently said something so wise 
 and to the point on the subject of biography that I can 
 not resist the temptation to quote him : 
 
 If the reader will but bear with me so far as to endure 
 the thesis that the first theoretical object of the biog 
 rapher should be indiscretion, not discretion, I will 
 concede almost everything practical to delicacy. But 
 this must be granted to me : that the aim of all por 
 traiture ought to be the emphasizing of what makes 
 the man different from, not like, other men. The widow 
 almost always desires that her deceased hero should 
 be represented as exactly like all other respectable 
 men, only a little grander, a little more glorified. She 
 hates, as only a bad biographer can hate, the telling 
 of the truth with respect to those faults and foibles 
 which made the light and shade of his character. This, 
 it appears, was the primitive view of biography. The 
 mass of medieval memorials was of the " expanded 
 tract" order: it was mainly composed of lives of the 
 saints, tractates in which the possible and the impos 
 sible were mingled in inextricable disorder, but where 
 every word was intended directly for edification. Here 
 the biographer was a moralist whose hold upon exact 
 truth of statement was very loose indeed, but who 
 
HENRY WARD BEECHER 123 
 
 was determined that every word he wrote should 
 strengthen his readers in the faith. Nor is this gener 
 ation of biographers dead to-day. Half the lives of the 
 great and good men, which are published in England 
 and America, are expanded tracts. Let the biographer 
 be tactful, but do not let him be cowardly ; let him 
 cultivate delicacy, but avoid its ridiculous parody, 
 prudery & & 
 
 And I also quote this from James Anthony Froude : 
 Q The usual custom in biography is to begin with the 
 brightest side and to leave the faults to be discovered 
 afterwards. It is dishonest and it does not answer. Of 
 all literary sins, Carlyle himself detested most a false 
 biography. Faults frankly acknowledged are frankly 
 forgiven. Faults concealed work always like poison. 
 Burns offences were made no secret of. They are 
 now forgotten, and Burns stands without a shadow on 
 him, the idol of his countrymen. 
 
 Byron s diary was destroyed, and he remains and will 
 remain with a stain of suspicion about him, which re 
 vives and will revive, and will never be wholly oblit 
 erated. " The truth shall make you free " in biography 
 as in everything. Falsehood and concealment are a 
 great man s worst enemies. 
 
 HENRY WARD BEECHER was born at Litch- 
 field, Conn., June 23, 1813. He was the eighth 
 child of Lyman and Roxana Foote Beecher. 
 Like Lincoln and various other great men, Beecher 
 had two mothers : the one who gave him birth and the 
 one who cared for him as he grew up. Beecher used 
 
124 HENRY WARD BEECHER 
 
 to take with him on his travels an old daguerreotype 
 of his real mother, and in the cover of the case, be 
 neath the glass, was a lock of her hair fair in color, 
 and bright as if touched by the kiss of the summer sun. 
 Often he would take this picture out and apostrophize 
 it, just as he would the uncut gems that he always 
 carried in his pockets. " My first mother," he used to 
 call her; and to him she stood as a sort of deity. " My 
 first mother stands to me for love; my second mother 
 for discipline; my father for justice," he once said to 
 Halliday # # 
 
 I am not sure that Beecher had a well defined idea of 
 either discipline or justice, but love to him was a very 
 vivid and personal reality. He knew what it meant 
 infinite forgiveness, a lifelong, yearning tenderness, a 
 Something that suffereth long and is kind. This he 
 preached for fifty years, and he preached little else. 
 Lyman Beecher proclaimed the justice of God; Henry 
 "Ward Beecher told of His love. Lyman Beecher was 
 a logician, but Henry Ward was a lover. There is 
 a task on hand for the man who attempts to prove 
 that Nature is kind, or that God is love. Perhaps man 
 himself, with all his imperfections, gives us the best 
 example of love that the universe has to offer. In 
 preaching the love of God, Henry Ward Beecher re 
 vealed his own ; for oratory, like literature, is only a 
 confession. 
 
 " My first mother is always pleading for me she 
 reaches out her arms to me her delicate, long, taper- 
 
HENRY WARD BEECHER 125 
 
 ing fingers stroke my hair I hear her voice, gentle 
 and low!" Do you say this is the language of o er- 
 wrought emotion ? I say to you it is simply the lan 
 guage of love. This mother, dead, and turned to dust, 
 who passed out when the boy was scarce three years 
 old, stood to him for the ideal. Love, anyway, is a 
 matter of the imagination, and he who cannot imagine 
 cannot love, and love is from within. The lover clothes 
 the beloved in the garments of his fancy, and woe to 
 him if he ever loses the power to imagine. 
 Have you not often noticed how the man or woman 
 whose mother died before a time the child could re 
 call, and whose memory clusters around a faded pic 
 ture and a lock of hair how this person is thrice 
 blessed in that the ideal is always a shelter when the 
 real palls ? Love is a refuge and a defense. The Law 
 of Compensation is kind : Lincoln lived, until the day 
 of his death, bathed in the love of Nancy Hanks, that 
 mother, worn, yellow and sad, who gave him birth, 
 and yet whom he had never known. No child ever 
 really lost its mother nothing is ever lost. Men are 
 only grown-up children, and the longing to be moth 
 ered is not effaced by the passing years. The type is 
 well shown in the life of Meissonier, whose mother 
 died in his childhood, but she was near him to the last. 
 In his journal he wrote this : " It is the morning of my 
 seventieth birthday. What a long time to look back 
 upon ! This morning, at the hour my mother gave me 
 birth, I wished my first thoughts to be of her. Dear 
 
i26 HENRY WARD BEECHER 
 
 Mother, how often have the tears risen at the remem 
 brance of you ! It was your absence my longing for 
 you that made you so dear to me. The love of my 
 heart goes out to you ! Do you hear me, Mother, cry 
 ing and calling for you ? How sweet it must be to 
 have a mother! " 
 
 ONE might suppose that a childless woman sud 
 denly presented by fate with an exacting hus 
 band and a brood of nine would soon be a 
 candidate for nervous prostration; but Sarah Porter 
 Beecher rose to the level of events, and looked after 
 her household with diligence and a conscientious 
 heart. Little Henry Ward was four years old and wore 
 a red flannel dress, outgrown by one of the girls. He 
 was chubby, with a full-moon face, and yellow curls, 
 which were so much trouble to take care of that they 
 were soon cut off, after he had set the example of 
 cutting off two himself. He talked as though his mouth 
 were full of hot mush. If sent to a neighbor s on an 
 errand, he usually forgot what he was sent for, or else 
 explained matters in such a way that he brought back 
 the wrong thing. His mother meant to be kind; her 
 patience was splendid; and one s heart goes out to 
 her in sympathy when we think of her faithful efforts 
 to teach the lesser catechism to this baby savage who 
 much preferred to make mud pies. 
 Little Henry Ward had a third mother who did him 
 
HENRY WARD BEECHER 127 
 
 much gentle benefit, and that was his sister Harriet, 
 two years his senior. These little child-mothers who 
 take care of the younger members of the family de 
 serve special seats in paradise. Harriet taught little 
 Henry Ward to talk plainly, to add four and four, and 
 to look solemn when he did not feel so and thus es 
 cape the strap behind the kitchen door. His bringing- 
 up was of the uncaressing, let-alone kind. 
 Lyman Beecher was a deal better than his religion ; 
 for his religion, like that of most people, was an inher 
 itance, not an evolution. Piety settled down upon the 
 household like a pall every Saturday at sundown ; and 
 the lessons taught were largely from the Old Testa 
 ment <f 4T 
 
 These big, bustling, strenuous households are pretty 
 good life-drill for the members. The children are taught 
 self-reliance, to do without each other, to do for others, 
 and the older members educate the younger ones. It 
 is a great thing to leave children alone. Henry Ward 
 Beecher has intimated in various places in his books 
 how the whole Beecher brood loved their father, yet 
 as precaution against misunderstanding they made 
 the sudden sneak and the quick side-step whenever 
 they saw him coming. 
 
 Village life with a fair degree of prosperity, but not 
 too much, is an education in itself. The knowledge 
 gained is not always classic, nor even polite, but it is 
 all a part of the great seething game of life. Henry 
 Ward Beecher was not an educated man in the usual 
 
i28 HENRY WARD BEECHER 
 
 sense of the word. At school he carved his desk, made 
 faces at the girls, and kept the place in a turmoil gen 
 erally : doing the wrong thing, just like many another 
 bumpkin. At home he carried in the wood, picked up 
 chips, worked in the garden in summer, and shoveled 
 out the walks in winter. He knew when the dish water 
 was worth saving to mix up with meal for chickens, 
 and when it should be put on the asparagus bed or the 
 rose bushes. He could make a lye-leach, knew that it 
 was lucky to set hens on thirteen eggs, realized that 
 hens eggs hatched in three weeks, and ducks in four. 
 He knew when the berries ripened, where the crows 
 nested, and could find the bee-trees by watching the 
 flight of the bees after they had gotten their fill on the 
 basswood blossoms. He knew all the birds that sang 
 in the branches could tell what birds migrated and 
 what not was acquainted with the flowers and weeds 
 and fungi knew where the rabbits burrowed could 
 pick the milk-weed that would cure warts, and tell the 
 points of the compass by examining the bark of the 
 trees. He was on familiar terms with all the ragamuf 
 fins in the village, and regarded the man who kept the 
 livery stable as the wisest person in New England, 
 and the stage-driver as the wittiest. 
 Lyman Beecher was a graduate of Yale, and Henry 
 Ward would have been, had he been able to pass the 
 preparatory examinations. But he could n t, and finally 
 he was bundled off to Amherst, very much as we now 
 send boys to a business college when they get plucked 
 
HENRY WARD BEECHER 129 
 
 at the high school. But it matters little give the boys 
 time some of them ripen slowly, and others there be 
 who know more at sixteen than they will ever know 
 again, like street gamins with the wit of debauchees, 
 rareripes at ten, and rotten at the core. "Delay adol 
 escence," wrote Dr. Charcot to an anxious mother 
 "delay adolescence, and you bank energy until it is 
 needed. If your boy is stupid at fourteen, thank God ! 
 Dullness is a fulcrum and your son is getting ready to 
 put a lever under the world." 
 
 At Amherst, Henry Ward stood well at the foot of his 
 class. He read everything excepting what was in the 
 curriculum, and never allowed his studies to interfere 
 with his college course. He reveled in the debating 
 societies, and was always ready to thrash out any sub 
 ject in wordy warfare against all comers. His temper 
 was splendid, his good-nature sublime. If an opponent 
 got the best of him he enjoyed it as much as the audi 
 ence he could wait his turn. The man who can laugh 
 at himself, and who is not anxious to have the last 
 word, is right in the suburbs of greatness. 
 However, the Beechers all had a deal of positivism in 
 their characters. Thomas K. Beecher of Elmira, in 
 1856, declared he would not shave until John C. Fremont 
 was elected president. It is needless to add that he 
 wore whiskers the rest of his life. 
 
 When Henry Ward was nineteen his father received 
 a call to become President of Lane Theological Sem 
 inary at Cincinnati, and Henry Ward accompanied 
 
HENRY WARD BEECHER 
 
 him as assistant. The stalwart old father had now 
 come to recognize the worth of his son, and for the 
 first time parental authority was waived and they were 
 companions. They were very much alike exuberant 
 health, energy plus, faith and hope to spare. And 
 Henry Ward now saw that there was a gentle, tender 
 and yearning side to his father s nature, into which 
 the world only caught glimpses. Lyman Beecher was 
 not free he was bound by a hagiograph riveted upon 
 his soul; and so to a degree his whole nature was 
 cramped and tortured in his struggles between the 
 " natural man and the "spiritual." The son was taught 
 by antithesis, and inwardly vowed he would be free. 
 The one word that looms large in the life of Beecher 
 is LIBERTY. 
 
 HENRY WARD BEECHER died aged seventy- 
 four, having preached since he was twenty- 
 three. During that time he was pastor of three 
 churches two years at Lawrenceburg, Indiana, six 
 years in Indianapolis, and forty-three years in Brook 
 lyn. It was in 1837 th at ^ e became pastor of the Con 
 gregational Church at Lawrenceburg. This town was 
 then a rival of Cincinnati. It had six churches several 
 more than were absolutely needed. The Baptists were 
 strong, the Presbyterians were strenuous, the Epis 
 copalians were exclusive, while the Congregationalists 
 were at ebb-tide through the rascality of a preacher 
 
HENRY WARD BEECHER 131 
 
 who had recently decamped and thrown a blanket of 
 disgrace over the whole denomination for ten miles 
 up the creek. Thus were things when Henry Ward 
 Beecher assumed his first charge. The membership of 
 the church was made up of nineteen women and one 
 man. The new pastor was sexton as well as preacher 
 he swept out, rang the bell, lighted the candles and 
 locked up after service. 
 
 Beecher remained in Lawrenceburg two years. The 
 membership had increased to a hundred and six men 
 and seventy women. I suppose it will not be denied as 
 an actual fact that women bolster the steeples so that 
 they stay on the churches. From the time women held 
 the rope and let St. Paul down in safety from the wall 
 in a basket, women have maintained the faith. But 
 Beecher was a man s preacher from first to last. He 
 was a bold, manly man, making his appeal to men. 
 QTwo years at Lawrenceburg and he moved to Indi 
 anapolis, the capital of the state, his reputation hav 
 ing been carried thither by the member from Posey 
 County, who incautiously boasted that his deestrick 
 had the most powerful preacher of any town on the 
 Ohio River #* & 
 
 At Indianapolis, Beecher was a success at once. He 
 entered into the affairs of the people with an ease and 
 a good nature that won the hearts of this semi-pioneer 
 population. His "Lectures to Young Men," delivered 
 Sunday evenings to packed houses, still have a sale. 
 This bringing religion down from the lofty heights of 
 
132 HENRY WARD BEECHER 
 
 theology and making it a matter of every-day life, was 
 eminently Beecheresque. And the reason it was a suc 
 cess was because it fitted the needs of the people. 
 Beecher expressed what the people were thinking. 
 Mankind clings to the creed ; we will not burn our 
 bridges we want the religion of our mothers, yet we 
 crave the simple common sense we can comprehend 
 as well as the superstition we can t. Beecher s task 
 was to rationalize orthodoxy so as to make it palatable 
 to thinking minds. " I can t ride two horses at one 
 time," once said Robert Ingersoll to Beecher, "but 
 possibly I 11 be able to yet, for to-morrow I am going 
 to hear you preach." Then it was that Beecher offered 
 to write Ingersoll s epitaph, which he proceeded to do 
 by scribbling two words on the back of an envelope, 
 thus: ROBERT BURNS. 
 
 But these men understood and had a thorough respect 
 for each other. Once at a mass meeting at Cooper 
 Union, Beecher introduced Ingersoll as the " first, fore 
 most, and most gifted of all living orators." 
 And Ingersoll, not to be outdone, referred in his speech 
 to Beecher as the "one orthodox clergyman in the 
 world who has eliminated hell from his creed and put 
 the devil out of church, and still stands in his pulpit." 
 CJSix years at Indianapolis put Beecher in command 
 of his armament. And Brooklyn, seeking a man of 
 power, called him thither. His first sermon in Ply 
 mouth Church outlined his course and the principles 
 then laid down he was to preach for fifty years. The 
 
HENRY WARD BEECHER 133 
 
 love of God ; the life of Christ, not as a sacrifice, but 
 as an example our Elder Brother; and Liberty 
 liberty to think, to express, to act, to become. 
 It would have been worth going miles to see this man 
 as he appeared at Plymouth Church those first years 
 of his ministry. Such a specimen of mental, spiritual 
 and physical manhood Nature produces only once in 
 a century. Imagine a man of thirty-five, when man 
 hood has not yet left youth behind, height five feet ten, 
 weight one hundred and eighty, a body like that of a 
 Greek god, and a mind poised, sure, serene, with a fund 
 of good nature that could not be overdrawn ; a face 
 cleanly shaven ; a wealth of blonde hair falling to his 
 broad shoulders ; eyes of infinite blue, eyes like the 
 eyes of Christ when He gazed upon the penitent thief 
 on the cross, or eyes that flash fire, changing their 
 color with the mood of the man a radiant, happy man, 
 the cheeriest, sunniest nature that ever dwelt in human 
 body, with a sympathy that went out to everybody 
 and everything children, animals, the old, the feeble, 
 the fallen a man too big to be jealous, too noble to 
 quibble, a man so manly that he would accept guilt 
 rather than impute it to another. If he had been pos 
 sessed of less love he would have been a stronger man. 
 The generous nature lies open and unprotected 
 through its guilelessness it allows concrete rascality 
 to come close enough to strike it. " One reason why 
 Beecher had so many enemies was because he be 
 stowed so many benefits," said Rufus Choate. 
 
134 HENRY WARD BEECHER 
 
 Talmage did not discover himself until he was forty- 
 six; Beecher was Beecher at thirty-five. He was as 
 great then as he ever was it was too much to ask 
 that he should evolve into something more Nature 
 has to distribute her gifts. Had Beecher grown after 
 his thirty-fifth year, as he grew from twenty-five to 
 thirty-five, he would have been a Colossus that would 
 have disturbed the equilibrium of the thinking world, 
 and created revolution instead of evolution. The oppo 
 sition toward great men is right and natural it is a 
 part of Nature s plan to hold the balance true, "lest 
 ye become as gods ! " 
 
 I TRAVELED with Major James B. Pond one lec 
 ture season, and during that time heard only two 
 themes discussed, John Brown and Henry Ward 
 Beecher. These were his gods. Pond fought with John 
 Brown in Kansas, shoulder to shoulder, and it was 
 only through an accident that he was not with Brown 
 at Harper s Ferry, in which case his soul would have 
 gone marching on with that of Old John Brown. From 
 1860 to 1866 Pond belonged to the army, and was sta 
 tioned in western Missouri, where there was no com 
 missariat, where they took no prisoners, and where 
 men lived, like Jesse James, who never knew the war 
 was over. Pond had so many notches cut on the butt 
 of his pistol that he had ceased to count them. He was 
 big, brusque, quibbling, insulting, dictatorial, pains- 
 
HENRY WARD BEECHER 135 
 
 taking, considerate and kind. He was the most exas 
 perating and lovable man I ever knew. He left a trail 
 of enemies wherever he traveled, and the irony of fate 
 is shown in that he was allowed to die peacefully in 
 his bed # 4f 
 
 I cut my relationship with him because I did not care 
 to be pained by seeing his form dangling from the 
 cross-beam of a telegraph pole. When I lectured at 
 Washington a policeman appeared at the box-office 
 and demanded the amusement license fee of five dol 
 lars. "Your authority?" roared Pond. And the police 
 man not being able to explain, Pond kicked him down 
 the stairway, and kept his club as a souvenir. We got 
 out on the midnight train before warrants could be 
 served ff & 
 
 He would often push me into the first carriage when 
 we arrived at a town, and sometimes the driver would 
 say, "This is a private carriage," or, "This rig is en 
 gaged," and Pond would reply, "What s that to me 
 drive us to the hotel you evidently don t know 
 whom you are talking to ! " And so imperious was his 
 manner that his orders were usually obeyed. Arriving 
 at the hotel, he would hand out double fare. It was his 
 rule to pay too much or too little. Yet as a manager he 
 was perfection he knew the trains to a minute, and 
 always knew, too, what to do if we missed the first 
 train, or if the train was late. At the hall he saw that 
 every detail was provided for. If the place was too 
 hot, or too cold, somebody got thoroughly damned. If 
 
i36 HENRY WARD BEECHER 
 
 the ventilation was bad, and he could not get the win 
 dows open, he would break them out. If you ques 
 tioned his balance sheet he would the next day flash 
 up an expense account that looked like a plumber s 
 bill and give you fifty cents as your share of the spoils. 
 At hotels he always got a room with two beds, if pos 
 sible. I was his prisoner he was despotically kind 
 he regulated my hours of sleep, my meals, my exer 
 cise. He would throw intruding visitors down stairs 
 as average men shoo chickens or scare cats. He was a 
 bundle of profanity and unrest until after the lecture. 
 Then we would go to our room, and he would talk like 
 a windmill. He would crawl into his bed and I into 
 mine, and then he would continue telling Beecher 
 stories half the night, comparing me with Beecher to 
 my great disadvantage. A dozen times I have heard 
 him tell how Beecher would say, "Pond, never con 
 sult me about plans or explain details if you do, our 
 friendship ceases." Beecher was glad to leave every 
 detail of travel to Pond, and Pond delighted in assum 
 ing sole charge. Beecher never audited an account he 
 just took what Pond gave him and said nothing. In 
 this Beecher was very wise he managed Pond and 
 Pond never knew it. Pond had a pride in paying 
 Beecher as much as possible, and found gratification 
 in giving the money to Beecher instead of keeping it. 
 He was immensely proud of his charge and grew to 
 have an idolatrous regard for Beecher. Pond s brusque 
 ways amused Beecher, and the Osawatomie experi- 
 
HENRY WARD BEECHER 137 
 
 ence made him a sort of hero in Beecher s eyes. 
 Beecher took Pond at his true value, regarded his 
 wrath as a child s tantrum, and let him do most of the 
 talking as well as the business. And Beecher s great, 
 welling heart touched a side of Pond s nature that 
 few knew existed at all a side that he masked with 
 harshness ; for, in spite of his perversity, Pond had his 
 virtues he was simple as a child, and so ingenuous 
 that deception with him was impossible. He could not 
 tell a lie so you would not know it. 
 He served Beecher with a dog-like loyalty, and an 
 honesty beyond suspicion. They were associated 
 fourteen years, traveled together over three hundred 
 thousand miles, and Pond paid to Beecher two hun 
 dred and forty thousand dollars. 
 
 BEECHER and Tilton became acquainted about 
 the year 1860. Beecher was at that time forty- 
 seven years old ; Tilton was twenty- five. The 
 influence of the older man over the younger was very 
 marked. Tilton became one of the most zealous work 
 ers in Plymouth Church : he attended every service, 
 took part in the Wednesday evening prayer meeting, 
 helped take up the collection, and was a constant re 
 cruiting force. Tilton was a reporter, and later an edi 
 torial writer on different New York and Brooklyn dai 
 lies. Beecher s Sunday sermon supplied Tilton the 
 cue for his next day s leader. And be it said to his 
 
138 HENRY WARD BEECHER 
 
 honor, he usually gave due credit, and in various ways 
 helped the cause of Plymouth Church by booming the 
 reputation of its pastor. 
 
 Tilton was possessed of a deal of intellectual nervous 
 force. His mind was receptive, active, versatile. His 
 all round newspaper experience had given him an ed 
 ucation, and he could express himself acceptably on 
 any theme. He wrote children s stories, threw off po 
 etry in idle hours, penned essays, skimmed the surface 
 of philosophy, and dived occasionally into theology. 
 But his theology and his philosophy were strictly the 
 goods put out by Beecher, distilled through the Tilton 
 cosmos. He occasionally made addresses at social 
 gatherings, and evolved into an orator whose reputa 
 tion extended to Staten Island. 
 
 Beecher s big, boyish heart went out to this bright 
 and intelligent young man they were much in each 
 other s company. People said they looked alike; al 
 though one was tall and slender and the other was in 
 clined to be stout. Beecher wore his hair long, and 
 now Tilton wore his long, too. Beecher affected a 
 wide-brimmed slouch hat ; Tilton wore one of similar 
 style, with brim a trifle wider. Beecher wore a large, 
 blue cloak ; Tilton wrapped himself round with a cloak 
 one shade more ultramarine than Beecher s. 
 Tilton s wife was very much like Tilton both were 
 intellectual, nervous, artistic. They were so much 
 alike that they give us a hint of what a hell this world 
 would be if all mankind were made in one mold. But 
 
HENRY WARD BEECHER 139 
 
 there was this difference between them : Mrs. Tilton 
 was proud, while Tilton was vain. They were only 
 civil toward each other because they had vowed they 
 would be. They did not throw crockery, because to do 
 so would have been bad form. 
 
 Beecher was a great joker hilarious, laughing, and 
 both witty and humorous. I was going to say he was 
 wise, but that is n t the word. Tilton lacked wit he 
 never bubbled excepting as a matter of duty. Both Mr. 
 and Mrs. Tilton greatly enjoyed the society of Beecher, 
 for, besides being a great intellectual force, his pres 
 ence was an antiseptic gainst jaundice and introspec 
 tion. And Beecher loved them both, because they loved 
 him, and because he loved everybody. They supplied 
 him a foil for his wit, a receptacle for his overflow of 
 spirit, a flint on which to strike his steel. Mrs. Tilton 
 admired Beecher a little more than her husband did 
 she was a woman. Tilton was glad that his wife liked 
 Beecher it brought Beecher to his house ; & if Beecher 
 admired Tilton s wife why, was not this a proof that 
 Tilton and Beecher were alike ? I guess so. Mrs. Tilton 
 was musical, artistic, keen of brain, emotional, with all 
 a fine-fibred woman s longings, hopes and ideals. 
 So matters went drifting on the tide, and the years 
 went by as the years will. 
 
 Mrs. Tilton became a semi-invalid, the kind that doc 
 tors now treat with hypophosphites, beef-iron-and- 
 wine, cod-liver oil, and massage by the right attend 
 ant. They call it congenital anaemia a scarcity of the 
 
140 HENRY WARD BEECHER 
 
 red corpuscle. Q Some doctors there be who do not 
 yet know that the emotions control the secretions, 
 and a perfect circulation is a matter of mind. Anyway, 
 what can the poor Galenite do in a case like this his 
 pills are powerless, his potions inane ! Tilton knew 
 that his wife loved Beecher, and he also fully realized 
 that in this she was only carrying out a little of the 
 doctrine of freedom that he taught, and that he claimed 
 for himself. For a time Tilton was beautifully magnan 
 imous. Occasionally Mrs. Tilton had spells of complete 
 prostration, when she thought she was going to die. 
 At such times her husband would send for Beecher to 
 come and administer extreme unction. 
 Instead of dying, the woman would get well. 
 After one such attack, Tilton taunted his wife with 
 her quick recovery. It was a taunt that pulled tight on 
 the corners of his mouth ; it was lacking in playfulness. 
 Beecher was present at the bedside of the propped-up 
 invalid. They turned on Tilton, did these two, and 
 flayed him with their agile wit and ready tongues. 
 Tilton protested they were wrong he was not jealous 
 the idea ! jf & 
 
 But that afternoon he had his hair cut, and he discarded 
 the slouch hat for one with a stiff brim. 
 It took six months for his hair to grow to a length 
 sufficient to indicate genius. 
 
HENRY WARD BEECHER 141 
 
 BEECHER S great heart was wrung and stung 
 by the tangle of events in which he finally found 
 himself plunged. That his love for Mrs. Tilton 
 was great there is no doubt, and for the wife with 
 whom he had lived for over a score of years he had a 
 profound pity and regard. She had not grown with him. 
 Had she remained in Lawrenceburg, Indiana, and 
 married a well-to-do grocer, all for her would have 
 been well. Beecher belonged to the world, and this his 
 wife never knew : she thought she owned him. To in 
 terest her and to make her shine before the world, 
 certain literary productions were put out with her 
 name as author, on request of Robert Bonner, but all 
 this was a pathetic attempt by her husband to conceal 
 the truth of her mediocrity. She spied upon him, 
 watched his mail, turned his pockets, and did all the 
 things no wife should do, lest perchance she be punished 
 by finding her suspicions true. Wives and husbands 
 must live by faith. The wife who is miserable until 
 she makes her husband "confess all," is never happy 
 afterwards. Beecher could not pour out his soul to his 
 wife he had to watch her mood and dole out to her 
 the platitudes she could digest never with her did he 
 reach abandon. But the wife strove to do her duty 
 she was a good housekeeper, economical and industri 
 ous, and her very virtues proved a source of exasper 
 ation to her husband he could not hate her. 
 It was Mrs. Beecher who first discovered the rela 
 tionship existing between her husband and Mrs. Tilton. 
 
142 HENRY WARD BEECHER 
 
 She accused her husband, and he made no denial 
 he offered her her liberty. But this she did not want. 
 Beecher promised to break with Mrs. Tilton. They 
 parted parted forever in sweet sorrow. 
 And the next week they met again. 
 The greater the man before the public, the more he 
 outpours himself, the more his need for mothering in 
 the quiet of his home. All things are equalized, and 
 with the strength of the sublime spiritual nature goes 
 the weakness of a child. Beecher was an undeveloped 
 boy to the day of his death. 
 
 Beecher at one time had a great desire to stand square 
 before the world. Major Pond, on Beecher s request, 
 went to Mrs. Beecher and begged her to sue for a 
 divorce. At the same time Tilton was asked to secure 
 a divorce from his wife. "When all parties were free, 
 Beecher would marry Mrs. Tilton and face the world 
 an honest man nothing to hide right out under the 
 clear blue sky, blown upon by the free winds of heaven ! 
 Q This was his heart s desire. 
 
 But all negotiations failed. Mrs. Beecher would not 
 give up her husband, and Tilton was too intent on re 
 venge and cash to even consider the matter. Then 
 came the crash. 
 
HENRY WARD BEECHER 143 
 
 TILTON sued Beecher for one hundred thousand 
 dollars damages for alienating his wife s affec 
 tion. It took five months to try the case. The 
 best legal talent in the land was engaged. The jury 
 disagreed and the case was not tried again. 
 Had Mrs. Beecher applied for a divorce on statutory 
 grounds, no court would have denied her prayer. In 
 actions for divorce, guilt does not have to be proved 
 it is assumed. But when one man sues another for 
 money damages, the rulings are drawn finer and mat 
 ters must be proved. That is where Tilton failed in 
 his law-suit. 
 
 At the trial, Beecher perjured himself like a gentleman 
 to protect Mrs. Tilton ; Mrs. Tilton waived the truth 
 for Beecher s benefit; and Mrs. Beecher swore black 
 was white because she did not want to lose her hus 
 band. Such a precious trinity of prevaricators is very 
 seldom seen in a court-room, a place where liars much 
 do congregate. Judge and jury knew they lied and re 
 spected them the more, for down in the hearts of all 
 men is a feeling that the love affairs of a man and 
 woman are sacred themes, and a bulwark of lies to 
 protect the holy of holies is ever justifiable. 
 Tilton was the one person who told the truth, and he 
 was universally execrated for it. Love does not leave 
 a person without reason. And there is something in 
 the thought of money as payment to a man for a 
 woman s love that is against nature. 
 Tilton lost the woman s love, and he would balm his 
 
i44 HENRY WARD BEECHER 
 
 lacerated heart with lucre ! Money ? God help us a 
 man should earn money. "We sometimes hear of men 
 who subsist on women s shame, but what shall we 
 say of a man who would turn parasite and live in lux 
 ury on a woman s love and this woman by him now 
 spurned and scorned ! The faults and frailties of men 
 and women caught in the swirl of circumstances are 
 not without excuse, but the cold plottings to punish 
 them and the desire to thrive by their faults, are hid 
 eous jf #- 
 
 The worst about a double life is not its immorality it 
 is that the relationship makes a man a liar. The uni 
 verse is not planned for duplicity all the energy we 
 have is needed in our business, and he who starts out 
 on the pathway of untruth, finds himself treading upon 
 brambles and nettles which close behind him and make 
 return impossible. The further he goes the worse the 
 jungle of poison-oak and ivy, which at last circle him 
 round in strangling embrace. He who escapes the 
 clutch of a life of falsehood is as one in a million. 
 Victor Hugo has pictured the situation when he tells 
 of the man whose feet are caught in the bed of bird 
 lime. He attempts to jump out, but only sinks deeper 
 he flounders, calls for help, and puts forth all his 
 strength. He is up to his knees to his hips his waist 
 his neck, and at last only hands are seen reaching 
 up in mute appeal to heaven. But the heavens are as 
 brass, and soon where there was once a man is only 
 the dumb indifference of nature. 
 
HENRY WARD BEECHER 145 
 
 The only safe course is the open road of truth. Lies 
 once begun, pile up ; and lies require lies to bolster 
 them *r 4T 
 
 Mrs. Tilton had made a written confession to her hus 
 band, but this she repudiated in court, declaring it was 
 given " in terrorem." Now she had only words of 
 praise and vindication for Beecher. 
 Mrs. Beecher sat by her husband s side all through the 
 long trial. For a man to leave the woman with whom 
 he has lived a lifetime, and who is the mother of his 
 children, is out of the question. What if she does lack 
 intellect and spirituality ! He has endured her ; aye ! 
 he has even been happy with her at times the rela 
 tionship has been endurable t were imbecility, and 
 death for both, to break it. 
 Beecher and his wife would stand together. 
 Mrs. Tilton s lips had been sanctified by love, and 
 were sealed, though her heart did break. 
 The jury stood nine for Beecher and three against. 
 Major Pond, the astute, construed this into a vindica 
 tion Beecher was not guilty ! 
 
 The first lecture after the trial was given at Alexan 
 dria Bay. Pond had sold out for five hundred dollars. 
 Beecher said it was rank robbery no one would be 
 there. The lecture was to be in the grove at three o clock 
 in the afternoon. In the forenoon, boats were seen 
 coming from east and west and north excursion boats 
 laden with pilgrims ; sail-boats, row-boats, skiffs, and 
 even birch-bark canoes bearing red-men. The people 
 
H6 HENRY WARD BEECHER 
 
 came also in carts and wagons, and on horseback. 
 An audience of five thousand confronted the lecturer. 
 Q The man who had planned the affair had banked on 
 his knowledge of humanity the people wanted to see 
 and hear the individual who had been whipped naked 
 at the cart s tail, and who still lived to face the world 
 smilingly, bravely, undauntedly. 
 
 Major Pond was paid the $500.00 as agreed. The en 
 terprise had netted its manager over a thousand dol 
 lars he was a rich man anyway things had turned 
 out as he had prophesied, and in the exuberance of 
 his success he that night handed Mr. Beecher a check 
 for $250.00, saying, " This is for you with my love it 
 is outside of any arrangement made with Major 
 Pond." After they had retired to their rooms, Beecher 
 handed the check to Pond, and said, as his blue eyes 
 filled with tears, " Major, you know what to do with 
 this ? " And Major Pond said, " Yes." 
 Tilton went to Europe, leaving his family behind. But 
 Major Pond made it his business to see that Mrs. Til- 
 ton wanted for nothing that money could buy. Beecher 
 never saw Mrs. Tilton, to converse with her, again. 
 She outlived him a dozen years. On her death-bed she 
 confessed to her sister that her denials as to her rela 
 tions with Beecher were untrue. " He loved me," she 
 said, "he loved me, and I would have been less than 
 woman had I not loved him. This love will be my 
 passport to paradise God understands." And so she 
 died & jf 
 
HENRY WARD BEECHER 147 
 
 TILTON was by nature an unsuccessful man. He 
 was proudly aristocratic, lordly, dignified, jeal 
 ous, mentally wiggling and spiritually jiggling. 
 His career was like that of a race-horse which makes 
 a record faster than he can ever attain again, and thus 
 is forever barred from all slow-paced competitions. 
 Tilton aspired to be a novelist, an essayist, a poet, an 
 orator. His performances in each of these lines, un 
 fortunately, were not bad enough to damn him ; and his 
 work done in fair weather was so much better than he 
 could do in foul that he was caught by the undertow. 
 And as for doing what Adirondack Murray did, get 
 right down to hard-pan and wash dishes in a dish-pan 
 he could n t do it. Like an Indian, he would starve 
 before he would work and he came near it, gaining 
 a garret living, teaching languages and doing hack 
 literary work in Paris, where he went to escape the 
 accumulation of contempt that came his way just 
 after the great Beecher trial. 
 
 Before this, Tilton started out to star the country as a 
 lecturer. He evidently thought he could climb to pop 
 ularity over the wreck of Henry Ward Beecher. Even 
 had he wrecked Beecher completely, it is very likely 
 he would have gone down in the swirl, and become 
 literary flotsam and jetsam just the same. 
 Tilton had failed to down his man, and men who are 
 failures do not draw on the lecture platform. The au 
 ditor has failure enough at home, God knows! and 
 what he wants when he lays down good money for a 
 
148 HENRY WARD BEECHER 
 
 lecture ticket is to annex himself to a success. QTilton s 
 lecture was called "The Problem of Life" a title 
 which had the advantage of allowing the speaker to 
 say anything he wished to say on any subject and 
 still not violate the unities. I heard Tilton give this 
 lecture twice, and it was given from start to finish 
 in exactly the same way. It contained much learning 
 had flights of eloquence, bursts of bathos, puffs of 
 pathos, but not a smile in the whole hour and a half. 
 It was faultily faultless, icily regular, splendidly null, 
 dead perfection no more. It was so perfect that some 
 people thought it great. The man was an actor and had 
 what is called platform presence. He would walk on the 
 stage, carrying his big blue cloak over his arm, his 
 slouch hat in his hand for he clung to these Beecher 
 properties to the last, even claiming that Beecher was 
 encroaching on his preserve in wearing them. 
 He would bow as stiffly and solemnly as a new-made 
 judge. Then he would toss the cloak on a convenient 
 sofa, place the big hat on top of it, and come down 
 to the footlights, deliberately removing his yellow kid 
 gloves. There was no introduction he was the whole 
 show and brooked no competition. He would begin 
 talking as he removed the gloves ; he would get one 
 glove off and hold it in the other hand, seemingly lost 
 in his speech. From time to time he would emphasize 
 his remarks by beating the palm of his gloved hand 
 with the loose glove. By the time the lecture was half 
 over, both gloves would be lying on the table ; unlike 
 
HENRY WARD BEECHER J49 
 
 the performance of Sir Edwin Arnold, who, during his 
 readings, always wore one white kid glove and carried 
 its mate in the gloved hand from beginning to end. 
 Q Theodore Tilton s lectures were consummate art, 
 done by a handsome, graceful and cultured man in a 
 red necktie, but they did not carry enough caloric to 
 make them go. They seemed to lack vibrations. Art 
 without a message is for the people who love art for 
 art s sake, and God does not care much for these, 
 otherwise He would not have made so few of them. 
 
 AS a sample of Beecher s eloquence, this extract 
 from his sermon on the death of Lincoln reveals 
 his quality : 
 
 The joy of the Nation came upon us suddenly, with 
 such a surge as no words can describe. Men laughed, 
 embraced one another, sang and prayed, and many 
 could only weep for gladness. 
 
 In one short hour, joy had no pulse. The sorrow was 
 so terrible that it stunned sensibility. The first feeling 
 was the least, and men wanted to get strength to feel. 
 Other griefs belong always to some one in chief, but 
 this belonged to all. Men walked for hours as though 
 a corpse lay in their houses. The city forgot to roar. 
 Never did so many hearts in so brief a time touch two 
 such boundless feelings. It was the uttermost of joy 
 and the uttermost of sorrow noon and midnight 
 without a space between. We should not mourn, how 
 ever, because the departure of the President was so 
 sudden. When one is prepared to die, the suddenness 
 of death is a blessing. They that are taken awake and 
 
iso HENRY WARD BEECHER 
 
 watching, as the bridegroom dressed for the wedding, 
 and not those who die in pain and stupor, are blessed. 
 Neither should we mourn the manner of his death. 
 The soldier prays that he may die by the shot of the 
 enemy in the hour of victory, and it was meet that he 
 should be joined in a common experience in death 
 with the brave men to whom he had been joined in all 
 his sympathy and life. 
 
 This blow was but the expiring rebellion. Epitomized 
 in this foul act we find the whole nature and disposi 
 tion of slavery. It is fit that its expiring blow should 
 be such as to take away from men the last forbear 
 ance, the last pity, and fire the soul with invincible 
 determination that the breeding-system of such mis 
 chiefs and monsters shall be forever and utterly de 
 stroyed. "We needed not that he should put on paper 
 that he believed in slavery, who, with treason, with 
 murder, with cruelty infernal, hovered round that 
 majestic man to destroy his life. He was himself the 
 life-long sting with which Slavery struck at Liberty, 
 and he carried the poison that belonged to slavery ; 
 and as long as this Nation lasts it will never be for 
 gotten that we have had one martyr-president never, 
 never while time lasts, while heaven lasts, while hell 
 rocks and groans, will it be forgotten that slavery by 
 its minions slew him, and in slaying him made mani 
 fest its whole nature and tendency. This blow was 
 aimed at the life of the Government. Some murders 
 there have been that admitted shades of palliation, but 
 not such a one as this without provocation, without 
 reason, without temptation sprung from the fury of 
 a heart cankered to all that is pure and just. 
 The blow has failed of its object. The Government 
 stands more solid to-day than any pyramid of Egypt. 
 Men love liberty and hate slavery to-day more than 
 
HENRY WARD BEECHER 151 
 
 ever before. How naturally, how easily, the Govern 
 ment passed into the hands of the new President, and 
 I avow my belief that he will be found a man true to 
 every instinct of liberty, true to the whole trust that 
 is imposed in him, vigilant of the Constitution, careful 
 of the laws, wise for liberty : in that he himself for his 
 life long, has known what it is to suffer from the stings 
 of slavery, and to prize liberty from the bitter experi 
 ence of his own life. Even he that sleeps has by this 
 event been clothed with new influence. His simple and 
 weighty words will be gathered like those of Wash 
 ington, and quoted by those who, were he alive, would 
 refuse to listen. Men will receive a new access to 
 patriotism. I swear you on the altar of his memory to 
 be more faithful to that country for which he perished. 
 We will, as we follow his hearse, swear a new hatred 
 to that slavery against which he warred, and which 
 in vanquishing him has made him a martyr and con 
 queror. I swear you by the memory of this martyr to 
 hate slavery with an unabatable hatred, and to pur 
 sue it. We will admire the firmness of this man in 
 justice, his inflexible conscience for the right, his gen 
 tleness and moderation of spirit, which not all the hate 
 of party could turn to bitterness. And I swear you to 
 follow his justice, his moderation, his mercy. How can 
 I speak to that twilight million to whom his name was 
 as the name of an angel of God, and whom God sent 
 before them to lead them out of the house of bondage. 
 O, thou Shepherd of Israel, Thou that didst comfort 
 Thy people of old, to Thy care we commit these help 
 less and long- wronged and grieved. 
 And now the martyr is moving in triumphal march, 
 mightier than one alive. The Nation rises up at every 
 stage of his coming; cities and states are his pall 
 bearers, and the cannon beat the hours in solemn pro- 
 
152 
 
 HENRY WARD BEECHER 
 
 gression ; dead, dead, dead, he yet speaketh. Is Wash 
 ington dead? Is Hampden dead? Is David? Q Four 
 years ago, O Illinois, we took from your midst an 
 untried man from among the people. Behold ! we 
 return him to you a mighty conqueror ; not thine any 
 more, but the Nation s not ours, but the world s. 
 Give him place, O ye prairies! in the midst of this 
 great continent shall rest a sacred treasure to myriads 
 who shall pilgrim to that shrine to kindle anew their 
 zeal and patriotism. Ye winds that move over mighty 
 spaces of the West, chant his requiem ! Ye people, be 
 hold the martyr whose blood, as so many articulate 
 words, pleads for fidelity, for law, for LIBERTY ! 
 
ttl* 
 
 TO THE HOMES OF EMINENT ORATORS 
 
 Vol. XIII. DECEMBER, 1903. No. 6 
 
 By ELBERT HUBBARD 
 
 Single Copies, 25 cents By the Year, $3.00 
 
LITTLE JOURNEYS 
 
 TO THE HOMES OF 
 
 EMINENT ORATORS 
 
 By ELBERT HUBBARD. 
 
 SUBJECTS AS FOLLOWS: 
 
 1 Pericles 7 Marat 
 
 2 Mark Antony 8 Robert Ingersoll 
 
 3 Savonarola 9 Patrick Henry 
 
 4 Martin Luther 10 Thomas Starr King 
 
 5 Edmund Burke n Henry Ward Beech 
 
 6 William Pitt 12 Wendell Phillips 
 
 One booklet a month will be issued as r 
 
 ning on January ist. 
 
 The LITTLE JOURNEYS for 190? strictly 
 
 de luxe in form and workmanship. j will be a 
 
 new font of antique blackface ; As designed 
 
 especially for this w0f k ; a fro , portrait from 
 
 the original drawing made r op. The booklets 
 
 will be stitched by hand v 
 
 The price 25 cents each, 01 jo for the year. 
 
 Address THE ROYCROFTERS at their 
 Shop, which is at East Aurora, New York 
 
 Entered at the postoffice at East Aurora, New York, for transmission 
 as second-class mail matter. Copyright, 1902, by Elbert Hubbard 
 
Little 
 3oumieys 
 
 To the Homes of 
 
 EMINENT 
 ORATORS 
 
 tUfitten by Elbert 
 Hubband & done 
 into a Book by the 
 
 Roy crofters at the 
 
 Shop, tobicb is in 
 East fluitoiui, Dew 
 Yoitk,JFL D. 1903 
 
WHAT WORLD-WIDE BENEFACTORS THESE "IM 
 PRUDENT" MEN ARE! HOW PRUDENTLY MOST 
 MEN CREEP INTO NAMELESS GRAVES; WHILE NOW 
 AND THEN ONE OR TWO FORGET THEMSELVES INTO 
 IMMORTALITY. 
 
 Speech on Lovejoy. 
 
Wendell Phillips 
 
WENDELL PHILLIPS 153 
 
 |AY the good Lord ever keep me from 
 wishing to say the last word; and also 
 from assigning ranks or awarding prizes 
 to great men gone. However, it is a joy 
 to get acquainted with a noble, splendid 
 personality, and then introduce him to 
 you, or at least draw the arras, so you 
 can see him as he lived and worked or 
 nobly failed. 
 
 And if you and I understand this man it 
 is because we are much akin to him. 
 The only relationship, after all, is the 
 spiritual relationship. Your brother after 
 the flesh may not be your brother at all ; 
 you may live in different worlds and call 
 to each other in strange tongues across 
 wide seas of misunderstandings. " Who 
 is my mother and who are my breth 
 ren?" 
 
 As you understand a man, just in that 
 degree are you related to him. There is 
 a great joy in discovering kinship for in 
 that moment you discover yourself, and 
 life consists in getting acquainted with 
 yourself. We see ourselves mirrored in 
 the soul of another that is what love 
 is or pretty nearly so. 
 If you like what I write, it is because I 
 express for you the things you already 
 
i54 WENDELL PHILLIPS 
 
 know ; we are akin, our heads are in the same stratum 
 we are breathing the same atmosphere. To the de 
 gree that you comprehend the character of "Wendell 
 Phillips you are akin to him. I once thought great men 
 were all ten feet high, but since I have met a few, 
 both in astral form and in the flesh, I have found out 
 differently jf jf 
 
 "What kind of a man was Wendell Phillips ? 
 Very much like you and me, Blessed, very much like 
 you and me. 
 
 I think well of great people, I think well of myself, 
 and I think well of you. "We are all God s children all 
 parts of the "Whole akin to Divinity. 
 Phillips never thought he was doing much never took 
 any great pride in past performances. When what you 
 have done in the past looks large to you, you have not 
 done much to-day. His hopes were so high that there 
 crept into his life a tinge of disappointment some 
 have called it bitterness, but that is not the word 
 just a touch of sadness because he was unable to do 
 more. This was a matter of temperament, perhaps, 
 but it reveals the humanity as well as the divinity of 
 the man. There is nothing worse than self-compla 
 cency smugosity is sin. Q Phillips was not supremely 
 great if he were, how could we comprehend him ? 
 QAnd now if you will open those folding doors 
 there ! that will do thank you. 
 
WENDELL PHILLIPS 155 
 
 WHEN was he born ? Ah, I 11 tell you it was 
 in his twenty-fifth year about three in the 
 afternoon, by the clock, October 2ist, 1835. 
 Qlt was an Indian summer day, warm and balmy. He 
 sat there reading in the window of his office on Court 
 Street, Boston, a spick-span new law office, with four 
 shelves of law books bound in sheep, a green-covered 
 table in the centre, three arm-chairs, and on the wall 
 a steel engraving of "Washington Crossing the Dela 
 ware." *T *T 
 
 He was a handsome fellow, was this Wendell Phil 
 lips it -would a been worth your while just to run up 
 the stairs and put your head in the door to look at him. 
 Q" Can I do anything for you ? " he would have asked. 
 Q"No, we just wanted to see you, that s all," we 
 would have replied. 
 
 He sat there at the window, his long legs crossed, a 
 copy of "Coke on Littleton " in his hands. His dress 
 was what it should be that of a gentleman his face 
 cleanly shaven, hair long, cut square and falling to his 
 black stock. He was the only son of Boston s first 
 Mayor, both to the manor and manner born, rich in 
 his own right; proud, handsome, strong, gentle, re 
 fined, educated a Christian gentleman, heir to the 
 best that Boston had to give a graduate of the Boston 
 Latin School, of Harvard College, of the Harvard Law 
 School living with his widowed mother in a man 
 sion on Beacon Hill, overlooking Boston s forty-three 
 acres of Common ! 
 
156 WENDELL PHILLIPS 
 
 Can you imagine anything more complete in way of 
 endowment than all this ? Did Destiny ever do more 
 for mortal man ? 
 
 There he sat waiting for clients. About this time he 
 made the acquaintance of a cock-eyed pulchritudinous 
 youth, Ben Butler by name, who was errand boy in a 
 nearby office. It was a strange friendship peppered 
 by much cross-fire whenever they met in public to 
 endure loyally for a lifetime. 
 
 Clients are sure to come to the man who is not too 
 anxious about them sure to come to a man like Phil 
 lips a youth clothed with the graces of a Greek 
 waiting on the threshold of manhood s morning. 
 Here is his career: a successful lawyer and leader in 
 society ; a member of the Legislature ; a United States 
 Senator, and then if he cares for it well, well, well ! 
 QBut in the meantime, there he sits, not with his feet 
 in the window or on a chair he is a gentleman, I said, 
 a Boston gentleman the flower of a gracile ancestry. 
 In the lazy, hazy air is the hum of autumn birds and 
 beetles the hectic beauty of the dying year is over all. 
 The hum seems to grow it becomes a subdued roar. 
 Q You have sat behind the scenes waiting for the cur 
 tain to rise a thousand people are there just out of 
 your sight five hundred of them are talking. It is one 
 high-keyed humming roar. 
 
 The roar of a mob is keyed lower it is guttural and 
 approaches a growl it seems to come in waves, a 
 brazen roar rising and falling but a roar, full of menace, 
 
WENDELL PHILLIPS 157 
 
 hate, deaf to reason, dead to appeal. Q You have heard 
 the roar of the mob in "Julius Caesar," and stay! once 
 I heard the genuine article. It was in Eighty-four 
 goodness gracious, I am surely getting old it was in 
 a town out West. I saw nothing but a pushing, crowd 
 ing mass of men, and all I heard was that deep gut 
 tural roar of the beast. I could not make out what it 
 was all about until I saw a man climbing a telegraph 
 pole # *T 
 
 He was carrying a rope in one hand. As he climbed 
 higher, the roar subsided. The climber reached the 
 arms that form the cross. He swung the rope over the 
 cross-beam and paid it out until the end was clutched 
 by the uplifted hands of those below. 
 The roar arose again like an angry sea, and I saw the 
 figure of a human being leap twenty feet into the air 
 and swing and swirl at the end of the rope. 
 The roar ceased. 
 
 The lawyer laid down the bran-new book, bound in 
 sheep, and leaned out of the window men were run 
 ning down the thoroughfare, some hatless, and at 
 Washington Street could be seen a black mass of hu 
 man beings beings who had forsaken their reason 
 and merged their personality into a mob. 
 The young lawyer arose, put on his hat, locked his 
 office, followed down the street. His tall and muscular 
 form pushed its way through the mass. 
 Theodore Lyman, the Mayor, was standing on a barrel 
 
_ WENDELL PHILLIPS 
 
 importuning the crowd to disperse. His voice was lost 
 in the roar of the mob. 
 
 From down a stairway came a procession of women, 
 thirty or so, walking by twos, very pale, but calm. The 
 crowd gradually opened out on a stern order from 
 some unknown person. The young lawyer threw him 
 self against those who blocked the way. The women 
 passed on, and the crowd closed in as water closes 
 over a pebble dropped into the river. 
 The disappearance of the women seemed to heighten 
 the confusion: there were stones thrown, sounds of 
 breaking glass a crash on the stairway, and down the 
 narrow passage, with yells of triumph, came a crowd 
 of men, half dragging a prisoner, a rope around his 
 waist, his arms pinioned. The man s face was white, 
 his clothing disheveled and torn. His resistance was 
 passive no word of entreaty or explanation escaped 
 his lips. A sudden jerk on the rope from the hundred 
 hands that clutched it, threw the man off his feet he 
 fell headlong, his face struck the stones of the pave 
 ment, and he was dragged for twenty yards. The crowd 
 grabbed at him and lifted him to his feet blood dripped 
 from his face, his hat was gone, his coat, vest and 
 shirt were in shreds. 
 The man spoke no word. 
 
 "That s him Garrison, the damned abolitionist!" 
 The words arose above the din. " Kill him ! Hang 
 
 Phillips saw the colonel of his militia regiment, and 
 
WENDELL PHILLIPS 159 
 
 seizing him by the arm, said, "Order out the men to 
 put down this riot! " 
 
 "Fool!" said the Colonel, "don t you see our men 
 are in this crowd ! " 
 
 "Then order them into columns, and we will protect 
 this man." 
 
 " I never give orders unless I know they will be 
 obeyed. Besides, this man Garrison is a rioter him 
 self he opposes the government." 
 " But, do we uphold mob law here, in Boston ! " 
 " Don t blame me I have n t anything to do with this 
 business. I tell you, if this man Garrison had minded 
 his own affairs, this scene would never have occurred." 
 Q " And those women ? " 
 
 "Oh, they are members of the Anti-Slavery Society. 
 It was their holding the meeting that made the trouble- 
 The children followed them, hooting them through 
 the streets!" 
 "Children?" 
 
 "Yes, you know children repeat what they hear at 
 home they echo the thoughts of their elders. The 
 children hooted them, then some one threw a stone 
 through a window. A crowd gathered, and here you 
 are!" & & 
 
 The Colonel shook himself loose from the lawyer and 
 followed the mob. The Mayor s counsel prevailed 
 " Give the prisoner to me I will see that he is pun 
 ished!" QAnd so he was dragged to the City Hall 
 and there locked up. 
 
i6o WENDELL PHILLIPS 
 
 The crowd lingered, then thinned out. The shouts 
 grew less, and soon the police were able to rout the 
 loiterers & & 
 
 The young lawyer went back to his law office, but not 
 to study. The law looked different to him now the 
 whole legal aspect of things had changed in an hour. 
 Q It was a pivotal point. 
 
 He had heard much of the majesty of the law, and 
 here he had seen the entire machinery of justice 
 brushed aside. 
 
 Law ! It is the thing we make with our hands and then 
 fall down and worship. Men want to do things, so they 
 do them, and afterward they legalize them, just as we 
 believe things first and later hunt for reasons. Or we 
 illegalize the thing we do not want others to do. 
 Boston, standing for law and order, will not even al 
 low a few women to meet and discuss an economic 
 proposition ! 
 
 Abolition is a fool idea, but we must have free speech 
 that is what our Constitution is built upon ! Law is 
 supposed to protect free speech, even to voicing wrong 
 ideas ! Surely a man has a legal right to a wrong opin 
 ion ! A mob in Boston to put down free speech ! 
 This young lawyer was not an Abolitionist not he, 
 but he was an American, descended from the Puri 
 tans, with ancestors who fought in the war of the 
 Revolution he believed in fair play. 
 His cheeks burned with shame. 
 
WENDELL PHILLIPS 161 
 
 SEEN from Mount Olympus, how small and piti 
 ful must seem the antics of Earth all these 
 churches and little sects our laws, our argu 
 ments, our courts of justice, our elections, our -wars ! 
 Q Viewed across the years, the Abolition Movement 
 seems a small thing. It is so thoroughly dead so far 
 removed from our present interests ! We hear a Vir 
 ginian praise John Brown, listen to Henry Watterson 
 as he says, " The South never had a better friend than 
 Lincoln," or brave General Gordon, as he declares, 
 " We now know that slavery was a gigantic mistake, 
 and that Emerson was right when he said, One end 
 of the slave s chain is always riveted to the wrist of 
 the master. " 
 
 We can scarcely comprehend that fifty years ago the 
 trinity of money, fashion and religion combined in the 
 hot endeavor to make human slavery a perpetuity; 
 that the man of the North who hinted at resisting the 
 return of a runaway slave, was in danger of financial 
 ruin, social ostracism, and open rebuke from the pul 
 pit. The ears of Boston were so stuffed with South 
 Carolina cotton that they could not hear the cry of the 
 oppressed. Commerce was fettered by self-interest, 
 and law ever finds precedents and sanctions for what 
 commerce most desires. And as for the pulpit, it is 
 like the law, in that scriptural warrant is always forth 
 coming for what the pew wishes to do. 
 Slavery, theoretically, might be an error, but in 
 America it was a commercial, political, social and 
 
i6a WENDELL PHILLIPS 
 
 religious necessity, and any man who said otherwise 
 was an enemy of the state. 
 
 William Lloyd Garrison said otherwise. But who was 
 William Lloyd Garrison ? Only an ignorant and fanat 
 ical free-thinker from the country town of Newbury- 
 port, Mass. He had started four or five newspapers, 
 and all had failed, because he would not keep his pen 
 quiet on the subject of slavery. 
 
 New England must have cotton, and cotton could not 
 be produced without slaves. Garrison was a fool. All 
 good Christians refused to read his vile sheet, and 
 business men declined to advertise with him or to 
 subscribe to his paper. 
 
 However, he continued to print things, telling what 
 he thought of slavery. In 1831, he was issuing a peri 
 odical called "The Liberator." 
 
 I saw a partial file of "The Liberator" recently, at 
 the Boston Public Library. They say it is very pre 
 cious, and a custodian stood by and tenderly turned 
 the leaves for me. I was not allowed even to touch it, 
 and when I was through looking at the tattered pages, 
 they locked it up in a fire-proof safe. 
 The sheets of different issues were of various sizes, 
 and the paper was of several grades in quality, show 
 ing that stock was scarce, and that there was no sys 
 tem in the office. 
 
 There surely was not much of a subscription list, and 
 we hear of Garrison s going around and asking for 
 contributions. But interviews were what he really 
 
WENDELL PHILLIPS 163 
 
 wished, as much as subscribers. He let the preachers 
 defend the peculiar institution to print a man s fool 
 remarks is the most cruel way of indicting him. Among 
 others Garrison called on -was Dr. Lyman Beecher, 
 then thundering against Unitarianism. 
 Garrison got various clergymen to commit themselves 
 in favor of slavery, and he quoted them verbatim, 
 whereas, on this subject, the clergy of the North 
 wished to remain silent very silent. 
 Dr. Beecher was wary all he would say was, " I 
 have too many irons in the fire now ! " 
 "You better take them all out and put this one in," 
 said the seedy editor. 
 
 But Dr. Beecher made full amends later he supplied 
 a son and a daughter to the Abolition Movement, and 
 this caused Carlos Martyn to say, "The old man s 
 loins were -wiser than his head." 
 
 Garrison had gotten himself thoroughly disliked in 
 Boston. The Mayor once replied to a letter inquiring 
 about him, "He is a nobody and lives in a rat hole." 
 Q But Garrison managed to print his paper, rather ir 
 regularly, to be sure, but he printed it. From one room 
 he moved into two, and a straggling company, calling 
 themselves "The Anti-Slavery Society," used his 
 office for a meeting place. 
 
 And now, behold the office mobbed, the type pitched 
 into the street, the Society driven out, and the fanat 
 ical editor, bruised and battered, safely lodged in jail 
 writing editorials with a calm resolution and a will 
 
164 WENDELL PHILLIPS 
 
 that never faltered. Q And Wendell Phillips ? He was 
 pacing the streets, wondering whether it was worth 
 while to be respectable and prosperous in a city where 
 violence took the place of law when logic failed. 
 To him, Garrison had won Garrison had not been an 
 swered: only beaten, bullied, abused and thrust behind 
 prison bars. 
 Wendell Phillips cheeks burned with shame. 
 
 GARRISON was held a prisoner for several days. 
 QThe Mayor would have punished the man, 
 Pilate-like, to appease public opinion, but 
 there was no law to cover the case no illegal offense 
 had been committed. Garrison demanded a trial, but 
 the officials said that they had locked him up merely 
 to protect him, and that he was a base ingrate. Offi 
 cial Boston now looked at the whole matter as a good 
 thing to forget. The prisoner s cell door was left open, 
 in the hope that he would escape, just as, later, George 
 Francis Train enjoyed the distinction of being the only 
 man who was literally kicked down the stone steps of 
 the Tombs. 
 
 Garrison was thrust out of limbo, with a warning, and 
 a hint that Boston-town was a good place for him to 
 emigrate from. 
 
 But Garrison neither ran away nor went into hiding 
 he calmly began a canvass to collect money to refit 
 his printing office. Boston had treated him well the 
 
WENDELL PHILLIPS 165 
 
 blood of the martyrs is the seed of the church he 
 would stay. Men who fatten on difficulties are hard to 
 subdue. Phillips met Garrison shortly after his re 
 lease, quite by chance, at the house of Henry G. 
 Chapman. Garrison was six years older than Phillips 
 tall, angular, intellectual, and lacked humor. He also 
 lacked culture. Phillips looked at him and smiled 
 grimly *f jf 
 
 But in the Chapman household was still another per 
 son, more or less interesting, a Miss Ann Terry 
 Greene. She was an orphan and an heiress a ward of 
 Chapman s. Young Phillips had never before met Miss 
 Greene, but she had seen him. She was one of the 
 women who came down the stairs from the " Liber 
 ator" office, when the mob collected. She had seen 
 the tall form of Phillips, and had noticed that he used 
 his elbows to good advantage in opening up the gang 
 way #- & 
 
 " It was a little like a cane-rush your campus practice 
 served you in good stead," said the lady, and smiled. 
 QAnd Phillips listened, perplexed that a young 
 woman like this, frail, intellectual, of good family, 
 should mix up in fanatical schemes for liberating black 
 men. He could not understand it ! 
 
 " But you were there you helped get us out of the 
 difficulty. And if worse had come to worst, I might 
 have appealed to you personally for protection !" 
 And the young lawyer stammered, " I would have 
 been only too happy," or something like that. The lady 
 
166 WENDELL PHILLIPS 
 
 had the best of the logic, and a thin attempt to pity 
 her on account of the unfortunate occurrence, went off 
 by the right oblique and was lost in space. 
 These Abolitionists were a queer lot ! 
 Not long after that meeting at Chapman s, the young 
 lawyer had legal business at Greenfield, that must be 
 looked after. Now Greenfield is one hundred miles 
 from Boston but then it was the same distance from 
 tide-water that Omaha is now that is to say, a two- 
 days journey. 
 
 The day was set. The stage left every morning at nine 
 o clock from the Bowdoin Tavern in Bowdoin Square. 
 A young fellow by the name of Charles Sumner was 
 going with Phillips, but at the last moment was de 
 tained by other business. That his chum could not go 
 was a disappointment to Phillips he paced the stone- 
 paved court-way of the tavern with clouded brow. All 
 around was the bustle of travel, and tearful friends 
 bidding folks good-bye, and the romantic rush of stage 
 coach land. 
 
 The ease and luxury of travel have robbed it of its 
 poetry Ruskin was right ! 
 
 But it did n t look romantic to "Wendell Phillips just 
 then his chum had failed him the weather was cold, 
 two days of hard jolting lay ahead. And "Ah! yes 
 it is Miss Greene ! and Miss Grew, and Mr. Alvord. 
 To Greenfield ? why, how fortunate ! " 
 Obliging strangers exchanged seats, so our friends 
 could be together passengers found their places on 
 
WENDELL PHILLIPS 167 
 
 top or inside, bundles and bandboxes were packed 
 away, harness chains rattled, a long whip sang through 
 the air, and the driver, holding a big bunch of lines in 
 one hand, swung the six horses, with careless grace, 
 out of Bowdoin Square, and turned the leaders heads 
 towards Cambridge. The post-horn tooted merrily, 
 dogs barked, and stable-boys raised a good-bye cheer! 
 Q Out past Harvard Square they went, through Arling 
 ton and storied Lexington on to Concord through 
 Fitchburg, to Greenfield. 
 
 It does n t take long to tell it, but that was a wonder 
 ful trip for Phillips the greatest and most important 
 journey of his life, he said forty years later. 
 Miss Grew lived in Greenfield and had been down to 
 visit Miss Greene. Mr. Alvord was engaged to Miss 
 Grew, and wanted to accompany her home, but he 
 could n t exactly, you know, unless Miss Greene went 
 along & *T 
 
 So Miss Greene obliged them. The girls knew the day 
 Phillips was going, and hastened their plans a trifle, 
 so as to take the same stage at least that is what 
 Charles Sumner said. 
 
 They did n t tell Phillips, because a planned excursion 
 on part of these young folks would n t have been just 
 right Beacon Hill would not have approved. But 
 when they had bought their seats and met at the stage- 
 yard why, that was a different matter. 
 Besides, Mr. Alvord and Miss Grew were engaged, 
 and Miss Greene was a cousin of Miss Grew there ! 
 
i68 WENDELL PHILLIPS 
 
 Q Let me here say that I am quite aware that long 
 after Miss Grew became Mrs. Alvord, she wrote a 
 most charming little book about Ann Terry Greene, 
 in which she defends the woman against any suspicion 
 that she plotted and planned to snare the heart of 
 Wendell Phillips, on the road to Greenfield. The de 
 fense was done in love, but was unnecessary. Ann 
 Terry Greene needs no vindication. As for her snaring 
 the heart of Wendell Phillips, I rest solidly on this : 
 She did. 
 
 Whether Miss Greene coolly planned that trip to 
 Greenfield, I cannot say, but I hope so. 
 And, anyway, it was destiny it had to be. 
 This man and woman were made for each other they 
 were " elected " before the foundations of Earth were 
 laid 0- & 
 
 The first few hours out, they were very gay. Later, 
 they fell into serious conversation. The subject was 
 Abolition. Miss Greene knew the theme in all of its 
 ramifications and parts its history, its difficulties, its 
 dangers, its ultimate hopes. Phillips soon saw that 
 all of his tame objections had been made before and 
 answered. Gradually the horror of human bondage 
 swept over him, and against this came the magnifi 
 cence of freedom and of giving freedom. By evening, 
 it came to him that all of the immortal names in 
 history where those of men who had fought liberty s 
 battle. That evening, as they sat around the crackling 
 fire at the Fitchburg Tavern, they did not talk a point 
 
WENDELL PHILLIPS 169 
 
 had been reached where words were superfluous the 
 silence sufficed. At day-break the next morning the 
 journey was continued. There was conversation, but 
 voices were keyed lower. When the stage mounted a 
 steep hill they got out and walked. Melancholy had 
 taken place of mirth. Both felt that a great and mys 
 terious change had come over their spirits their 
 thought was fused. Miss Greene had suffered social 
 obloquy on account of her attitude on the question of 
 slavery to share this obloquy seemed now the one 
 thing desirable to Phillips. It is a great joy to share 
 disgrace with the right person. The woman had intel 
 lect, education, self-reliance and passion. There was 
 an understanding between them. And yet no word of 
 tenderness had been spoken. An avowal formulated 
 in words is a cheap thing, and a spoken proposal goes 
 with a cheap passion. The love that makes the silence 
 eloquence and fills the heart with a melody too sacred 
 to voice, is the true token. O God! we thank thee for the 
 thoughts and feelings that are beyond speech. 
 
 WHEN it became known that Wendell Phil 
 lips, the most promising of Boston s young 
 sons, had turned Abolitionist, Beacon Hill 
 rent its clothes and put ashes on its head. 
 On the question of slavery, the first families of the 
 North stood with the first families of the South the 
 rights of property were involved, as well as the ques- 
 
WENDELL PHILLIPS 
 
 tion of caste. Q Let one of the scions of Wall Street 
 avow himself an anarchist and the outcry of horror 
 would not be greater than it was when young Phil 
 lips openly declared himself an Abolitionist. His im 
 mediate family were in tears; the relatives said they 
 were disgraced; cousins cut him dead on the street, 
 and his name was stricken from the list of "invited 
 guests." The social-column editors ignored him, and 
 worst of all, his clients fled. 
 
 The biographers are too intensely partisan to believe, 
 literally, and when one says, " He left a large and 
 lucrative practice that he might devote himself," etc., 
 etc., we better reach for the Syracuse product. 
 Wendell Phillips never had a large and lucrative prac 
 tice, and if he had, he would not have left it. His little 
 law business was the kind that all fledgelings get the 
 kind that big lawyers do not want, and so they pass it 
 over to the boys. Doctors are always turning pauper 
 patients over to the youngsters, and so in successful 
 law offices there is more or less of this semi-charitable 
 work to do. Business houses also have fag-end work 
 that they give to beginners, as kind folks give bones to 
 Fido. Wendell Phillips law work was exactly of this 
 contingent kind big business and big fees only go to 
 big men and tried. 
 
 Law is a business, and lawyers who succeed are busi 
 ness men. Social distinction has its pull in all profes 
 sions and all arts, and the man who can afford to affront 
 society and hope to succeed is as one in a million. 
 
WENDELL PHILLIPS 171 
 
 Lawyers and business men were not so troubled about 
 "Wendell Phillips inward beliefs as they were in the 
 fact that he was a fool he had flung away his chances 
 of getting on in the world. They ceased to send him 
 business he had no work no callers folks he used 
 to know were now strangely near-sighted. 
 Phillips did n t quit the practice of law, any more than 
 he withdrew from society both law and society quit 
 him. And then he made a virtue of necessity and boldly 
 resigned his commission as a lawyer he would not 
 longer be bound to protect the Constitution that up 
 held the right of a slave-owner to capture his "property 
 in Massachusetts. 
 
 He and Ann talked this over at length they had little 
 else to do. They excommunicated society, and Wen 
 dell Phillips became an outlaw, in the same way that 
 the James boys became outlaws through accident, 
 and not through choice. Social disgrace is never 
 sought, and obloquy is not a thing to covet these 
 things may come, and usually they mean a smother- 
 blanket to all -worldly success. 
 
 But Ann and Wendell had their love; and each had a 
 bank account, and then they had pride that proved a 
 prophylactic gainst the clutch of oblivion. 
 On October i2th, 1837, the outlaws, Ann and Wendell, 
 were married. It -was a quiet wedding guests were 
 not invited because it was not pleasant to court cyn 
 ical regrets, and kinsmen were noticeable by their 
 absence. 
 
ITS WENDELL PHILLIPS 
 
 Proscription has its advantages for one thing, it binds 
 human hearts like hoops of steel. Yet it was not neces 
 sary here, for there was no waning of the honeymoon 
 during that forty-odd years of married life. 
 But scarcely had the petals fallen from the orange 
 blossoms, before an event occurred that marked an 
 other mile-stone in the career of Phillips. 
 At St. Louis, the Rev. E. P. Lovejoy, a Presbyterian 
 clergyman, had been mobbed and his printing office 
 sacked, because he had expressed himself on the sub 
 ject of slavery. Lovejoy then moved up to Alton, Illi 
 nois, on the other side of the river, on free soil, and 
 here he sought to re-establish his newspaper. 
 But he was to benefit the cause in another way than 
 by printing editorials. The place was attacked, the 
 presses broken into fragments, the type flung into the 
 Mississippi River, and Lovejoy was killed. 
 A tremor of horror ran through the North it was not 
 the question of slavery no, it was the right of free 
 speech. 
 
 A meeting was called at Faneuil Hall to consider the 
 matter and pass fitting resolutions. There was some 
 thing beautifully ironical in Boston interesting herself 
 concerning the doings of a mob a thousand miles away, 
 especially when Boston, herself, had done about the 
 same thing only two years before. 
 Boston preferred to forget but somebody would not 
 let her. Just who called the meeting, no one seemed to 
 know. The word " Abolition" was not used on the 
 
WENDELL PHILLIPS 173 
 
 placards "free speech" was the shibboleth. The hall 
 had been leased, and the assembly was to occur in the 
 forenoon. The principal actors evidently anticipated 
 serious trouble if the meeting was at night. 
 The authorities sought to discourage the gathering, but 
 this only advertised it. At the hour set, the place 
 "the Cradle of Liberty" was packed. 
 The crowd was made up of three classes, the Aboli 
 tionists and they were in the minority the mob who 
 hotly opposed them, and the curious and indifferent 
 people who wanted to see the fireworks. 
 Many women were in the audience, and a dozen cler 
 gymen on the platform this gave respectability to the 
 assemblage. The meeting opened tamely enough with 
 a trite talk by a Unitarian clergyman, and followed 
 along until the resolutions were read. Then there were 
 cries of, "Table them!" the matter was of no im 
 portance. 
 
 A portly figure was seen making its way to the plat 
 form. It was the Hon. James T. Austin, Attorney- 
 General of the State. He was stout, florid, ready of 
 tongue a practical stump-speaker and withal a good 
 deal of a popular favorite. The crowd cheered him 
 he caught them from the start. His intent was to ex 
 plode the whole thing into a laugh, or else end it in a 
 row he did n t care which. 
 
 He pooh-poohed the whole affair; and referred to the 
 slaves as a menagerie of lions, tigers, hyenas a jack 
 ass or two and a host of monkeys, which the fool 
 
i74 WENDELL PHILLIPS 
 
 Abolitionists were trying to turn loose. He regretted 
 the death of Lovejoy, but his taking off should be a 
 warning to all good people they should be law-abiding 
 and mind their own business. He moved that the res 
 olutions be tabled. 
 
 The applause that followed showed that if a vote were 
 then taken the Attorney-General s motion would have 
 prevailed jf jf 
 
 "Answer him, "Wendell, answer him!" whispered 
 Ann, excitedly, and before the Attorney-General had 
 bowed himself from the platform, "Wendell Phillips 
 had sprung upon the stage and stood facing the audi 
 ence. There were cries of, " Vote ! vote ! " the mob- 
 ocrats wanted to cut the matter short. Still others 
 shouted, "Fair play! Let us hear the boy!" The 
 young man stood there, calm, composed handsome 
 in the strength of youth. He waited until the audience 
 came to him and then he spoke in that dulcet voice 
 deliberate, measured, faultless every sentence 
 spaced. The charm of his speech caught the curiosity 
 of the crowd. People did not know whether he was go 
 ing to sustain the Attorney-General or assail him. From 
 compliments and generalities he moved off into bitter 
 sarcasm. He riddled the cheap wit of his opponent ; tore 
 his logic to tatters and held the pitiful rags of reason 
 up before the audience. There were cries of, "Trea 
 son!" "Put him out!" Phillips simply smiled and 
 waited for the frenzy to subside. The speaker who 
 has aroused his hearers into a tumult of either dissent 
 
WENDELL PHILLIPS 175 
 
 or approbation has won and Phillips did both. He 
 spoke for thirty minutes and finished in a -whirlwind of 
 applause. The Attorney-General had disappeared, and 
 those of his followers who remained were strangely 
 silent. The resolutions were passed in a shout of ac 
 clamation <r dT 
 
 The fame of Wendell Phillips as an orator was made. 
 Father Taylor once said, " If Emerson goes to hell, he 
 will start emigration in that direction." And from the 
 day of that first Faneuil Hall speech Wendell Phillips 
 gradually caused Abolitionism in New England to be 
 come respectable. 
 
 PHILLIPS was twenty-seven years old when he 
 gave that first great speech, and for just twenty- 
 seven years he continued to speak on the subject 
 of slavery. He was an agitator he was a man who 
 divided men. He supplied courage to the weak, argu 
 ments to the many and sent a chill of hate and fear 
 through the hearts of the enemy. And just here is a 
 good place to say that your radical your fire-eater, agi 
 tator, & revolutionary who dips his pen in aqua fortis, 
 & punctuates with blood, is almost without exception, 
 met socially, a very gentle, modest and suave individ 
 ual. William Lloyd Garrison, Wendell Phillips, Horace 
 Greeley, Fred Douglass, George William Curtis, & even 
 John Brown, were all men with low, musical voices 
 and modest ways men who would not tread on an 
 
i76 WENDELL PHILLIPS 
 
 insect nor harm a toad. Q When the fight had been 
 won the Emancipation Proclamation issued there 
 were still other fights ahead. The habit of Phillips 
 life had become fixed. 
 
 He and Ann lived in that plain little home on Exeter 
 Street, and to this home of love he constantly turned 
 for rest and inspiration. 
 
 At the close of the war he found his fortune much im 
 paired, and he looked to the Lyceum Stage the one 
 thing for which he was so eminently fitted. 
 It was about the year 1880 a callow interviewer asked 
 him who his closest associates were. The answer 
 was, "My colleagues are hackmen and hotel clerks; 
 and I also know every conductor, brakeman and engi 
 neer on every railroad in America. My home is in the 
 caboose, and my business is establishing trains." 
 I heard "Wendell Phillips speak but once. I was about 
 twelve years of age, and my father and I had ridden 
 ten miles across the wind-swept prairie in the face of 
 a winter storm. 
 
 It was midnight when we reached home, but I could 
 not sleep until I had told my mother all about it. I re 
 member the hall was packed, and there were many 
 gas lights, and on the stage were a dozen men all 
 very great, my father said. One man arose and spoke. 
 He lifted his hands, raised his voice, stamped his foot, 
 and I thought he surely was a very great man. He was 
 just introducing the real speaker. 
 Then the Real Speaker walked slowly down to the 
 
WENDELL, PHILLIPS 177 
 
 front of the stage and stood very still. And everybody 
 was awful quiet no one coughed, nor shuffled his feet, 
 nor whispered I never knew a thousand folks could 
 be so still. I could hear my heart beat I leaned over 
 to listen and I wondered what his first words would 
 be, for I had promised to remember them for my 
 mother. And the words were these " My dear friends: 
 We have met here to-night to talk about the Lost 
 Arts." * * * * That is just what he said I 11 not de 
 ceive you and it was n t a speech at all he just talked 
 to us. We were his dear friends he said so, and a 
 man with a gentle, quiet voice like that would not call 
 us his friends if he wasn t our friend. 
 He had found out some wonderful things and he had 
 just come to tell us about them ; about how thousands 
 of years ago men worked in gold and silver and ivory; 
 how they dug canals, sailed strange seas, built won 
 derful palaces, carved statues and wrote books on the 
 skins of animals. He just stood there and told us about 
 these things he stood still, with one hand behind him, 
 or resting on his hip, or at his side, and the other hand 
 motioned a little that was all. We expected every 
 minute he would burst out and make a speech, but he 
 did n t he just talked. There was a big yellow pitcher 
 and a tumbler on the table, but he did n t drink once, 
 because you see he did n t work very hard he just 
 talked he talked for two hours. I know it was two 
 hours, because we left home at six o clock, got to the 
 hall at eight, and reached home at midnight. We came 
 
ITS WENDELL PHILLIPS 
 
 home as fast as we went, and if it took us two hours 
 to come home, and he began at eight, he must have 
 been talking for two hours. I did n t go to sleep did n t 
 nod once jf & 
 
 We hoped he would make a speech before he got 
 through, but he did n t. He just talked, and I under 
 stood it all. Father held my hand we laughed a little 
 in places, at others we wanted to cry, but did n t but 
 most of the time we just listened. We were going to 
 applaud, but forgot it. He called us his dear friends. 
 QI have heard thousands of speeches since that win 
 ter night in Illinois. Very few indeed can I recall, and 
 beyond the general theme, that speech by Wendell 
 Phillips has gone from my memory. But I remember 
 the presence and attitude and voice of the man as 
 though it were but yesterday. The calm courage, de 
 liberation, beauty and strength of the speaker his 
 knowledge, his gentleness, his friendliness! I had 
 heard many sermons, and some had terrified me. This 
 time I had expected to be thrilled, too, and so I sat 
 very close to my father and felt for his hand. And here 
 it was all just quiet joy I understood it all. I was 
 pleased with myself; and being pleased with myself, I 
 was pleased with the speaker. He was the biggest and 
 best man I had ever seen the first real man. 
 It is no small thing to be a man ! 
 
WENDELL PHILLIPS 179 
 
 IN 1853, Emerson said the reason Phillips was the 
 best public speaker in America was because he 
 had spoken every day for fourteen years. 
 This observation did n t apply to Phillips at all, but 
 Emerson used Phillips to hammer home a great gen 
 eral truth, which was that practice makes perfect. 
 Emerson, like all the rest of us, had certain pet theo 
 ries, which he was constantly bolstering by analogy 
 and example. He had Phillips in mind when he said 
 that the best drill for an orator was a course of mobs. 
 Q But the cold fact remains that Phillips never made 
 a better speech, even after fourteen years daily prac 
 tice, than that reply to Attorney-General Austin, at 
 Faneuil Hall. 
 
 He gave himself, and it was himself full-armed and at 
 his best. All the conditions were exactly right there 
 was hot opposition ; and there also was love and en 
 couragement. 
 
 His opponent, with brag, bluster, pomposity, cheap 
 wit and insincerity served him as a magnificent foil. 
 Never again were wind and tide so in his favor. 
 It is opportunity that brings out the great man, but he 
 only is great who prepares for the opportunity who 
 knows it will come and who seizes upon it when it 
 arrives. 
 
 In this speech, Wendell Phillips reveals himself at 
 his best it has the same ring of combined courage, 
 culture and sincerity that he showed to the last. Clear 
 thinking and clear speaking marked the man. Taine 
 
i8o WENDELL PHILLIPS 
 
 says the style is the man the Phillips style was all in 
 that first speech, and here is a sample : 
 
 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 excitement of those days and our own, 
 which this gentleman in kindness to the latter has 
 overlooked, is simply this : the men of that day went 
 for the right, as secured by laws. They were the peo 
 ple 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 gentlemen 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 he should sink into insignificance 
 if he condescended to gainsay the principles of these 
 resolutions. 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 swal 
 lowed him up! 
 
 Allusion has been made to what lawyers understand 
 very well the "conflict of laws." We are told that 
 nothing but the Mississippi River runs between St. 
 Louis and Alton; and the conflict of laws somehow or 
 other gives the citizens of the former a right to find 
 fault with the defender of the press for publishing his 
 opinions so near their limits. Will the gentleman ven 
 ture that argument before lawyers ? How the laws of 
 the two states could be said to come into conflict in 
 such circumstances, I question whether any lawyer in 
 
WENDELL PHILLIPS 181 
 
 this audience can explain or understand. No matter 
 whether the line that divides one sovereign State from 
 another be an imaginary one or ocean wide, the mo 
 ment you cross it, the State you leave is blotted out of 
 existence, so far as you are concerned. The Czar might 
 as well claim to control the deliberations of Faneuil 
 Hall, as the laws of Missouri demand reverence, or 
 the shadow of obedience, from an inhabitant of Illinois. 
 CJ Sir, as I understand this affair, it was not an indi 
 vidual protecting his property ; it was not one body of 
 armed men assaulting another, and making the streets 
 of a peaceful city run blood with their contentions. It 
 did not bring back the scenes in some old Italian cities, 
 where family met family, and faction met faction, and 
 mutually trampled the laws under foot. No ; the men 
 in that house were regularly enrolled under the sanc 
 tion of the mayor. There being no militia in Alton, 
 about seventy men were enrolled with the approba 
 tion of the mayor. These relieved each other every 
 other night. About thirty men were in arms on the 
 night of the sixth, when the press was landed. The 
 next evening it was not thought necessary to sum 
 mon more than half that number ; among these was 
 Lovejoy. It was, therefore, you perceive, Sir, the police 
 of the city resisting rioters civil government breast 
 ing itself to the shock of lawless men. Here is no 
 question about the right of self-defence. It is, in fact, 
 simply this : Has the civil magistrate a right to put 
 down a riot? Some persons seem to imagine that an 
 archy existed at Alton from the commencement of 
 these disputes. Not at all. " No one of us," says an eye 
 witness and a comrade of Lovejoy, " has taken up arms 
 during these disturbances but at the command of the 
 mayor." Anarchy did not settle down on that devoted 
 city till Lovejoy breathed his last. Till then the law, 
 
182 WENDELL PHILLIPS 
 
 represented in his person, sustained itself against its 
 foes. When he fell, civil authority was trampled under 
 foot. He had " planted himself on his constitutional 
 rights " appealed to the laws claimed the protection 
 of the civil authority taken refuge under "the broad 
 shield of the Constitution. When through that he was 
 pierced and fell, he fell but one sufferer in a common 
 catastrophe." He took refuge under the banner of lib 
 erty amid its folds; and when he fell, its glorious 
 stars and stripes, the emblem of free constitutions, 
 around which cluster so many heart-stirring memories, 
 were blotted out in the martyr s blood. 
 If, Sir, I had adopted what are called peace principles, 
 I might lament the circumstances of this case. But all 
 of you who believe, as I do, in the right and duty of 
 magistrates to execute the laws, join with me and 
 brand as base hypocrisy the conduct of those who as 
 semble year after year on the Fourth of July, to fight 
 over battles of the Revolution, and yet "damn with 
 faint praise," or load with obloquy, the memory of this 
 man, who shed his blood in defence of life, liberty, 
 and the freedom of the press ! 
 
 Imprudent to defend the freedom of the press ! Why ? 
 Because the defence was unsuccessful ? Does success 
 gild crime into patriotism, and want of it change heroic 
 self-devotion to imprudence ? Was Hampden impru 
 dent when he drew the sword and threw away the 
 scabbard ? Yet he, judged by that single hour, was un 
 successful. After a short exile, the race he hated sat 
 again upon the throne. 
 
 Imagine yourself present when the first news of Bun 
 ker Hill battle reached a New England town. The 
 table would have run thus : " The patriots are routed ; 
 the redcoats victorious ; Warren lies dead upon the 
 field." With what scorn would that Tory have been 
 
WENDELL PHILLIPS 183 
 
 received, who should have charged Warren with im 
 prudence ! who should have said that, bred as a phy 
 sician, he was " out of place " in the battle, and " died 
 as the fool dieth ! " [Great applause.] How would the 
 intimation have been received, that Warren and his 
 associates should have waited a better time ? But, if 
 success be indeed the only criterion of prudence, Res- 
 pice finem wait till the end. 
 
 Presumptuous to assert the freedom of the press on 
 American ground ! Is the assertion of such freedom 
 before the age ? So much before the age as to leave 
 one no right to make it because it displeases the com 
 munity ? Who invents this libel on his country ? It is 
 this very thing which entitles Lovejoy to greater 
 praise ; the disputed right which provoked the Revolu 
 tion taxation without representation is far beneath 
 that for which he died. [Here there was a strong and 
 general expression of disapprobation.] One word, gen 
 tlemen. As much as Thought is better than Money, so 
 much is the cause in which Lovejoy died nobler than 
 a mere question of taxes. James Otis thundered in this 
 hall when the king did but touch his Pocket. Imagine, 
 if you can, his indignant eloquence had England of 
 fered to put a gag upon his Lips. [Great applause.] 
 The question that stirred the Revolution touched our 
 civil interests. This concerns us not only as citizens, 
 but as immortal beings. Wrapped up in its fate, saved 
 or lost with it, are not only the voice of the states 
 man, but the instructions of the pulpit and the progress 
 of our faith. 
 
 The clergy "marvelously out of place" where free 
 speech is battled for liberty of speech on national 
 sins ? Does the gentlemen remember that freedom to 
 preach was first gained, dragging in its train freedom 
 to print ? I thank the clergy here present, as I rever- 
 
1 84 
 
 WENDELL PHILLIPS 
 
 ence their predecessors, who did not so far forget their 
 country in their immediate profession as to deem it 
 duty to separate themselves from the struggle of 76 
 the Mayhews and the Coopers who remembered they 
 were citizens before they were clergymen. * * * * 
 Q 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 key-note 
 of these United States. I am glad, for one reason, that 
 remarks such as those to which I have alluded have 
 been uttered here. The passage of these resolutions, in 
 spite of this opposition, led by the Attorney-General 
 of the Commonwealth, will show more clearly, more 
 decisively, the deep indignation with which Boston 
 regards this outrage. 
 
TO THE HOMES OF GREAT PHILOSOPHERS 
 
 Vol. XIV. JANUARY, 1904. No. I 
 
 By ELBERT HUBBARD 
 
 Single Copies, 25 cents By the Year, $3.00 
 
LITTLE JOURNEYS 
 
 By Elbert Hubbard FOR 1904 
 
 WILL BE TO THE HOMES OF 
 
 GREAT PHILOSOPHERS 
 
 THE SUBJECTS AS FOLLOWS 
 
 1 Socrates 7 Ittmtanucl Kant 
 
 2 Seneca 8 Huguste Comte 
 
 3 Hristotle 9 Voltaire 
 
 4 JMarcus Hurelius i o Rerbert Spencer 
 
 5 Spinoza i 1 Schopenhauer 
 
 6 Swedenborg \z Renry Choreau 
 
 One booklet a month will be issued as usual, beginning Jan 
 uary First. The LITTLE JOURNEYS for Nineteen Hun 
 dred Four will be strictly de luxe in form and workmanship. 
 The type will be a new font of antique blackface ; the initials 
 designed especially for this work; a frontispiece portrait 
 from the original drawing made at our Shop. The booklets 
 will be stitched by hand with silk ^ H&> ^ ^ ^ ^ 
 The price Twenty-five cents each, or $3.00 a year 
 
 Address THE ROYCROFTERS at their Shop, 
 which is at East Aurora, Erie County, New York 
 
 Entered at the postoffice at East Aurora, New York, for transmission as 
 second-class mail matter. Copyright, 1903, by Elbert Hubbard 
 
Little 
 Journeys 
 
 TO THE HOMES OF 
 
 Great 
 Philosophers 
 
 Socrates 
 
 WRITTEN BY ELBERT 
 HUBBARD AND DONE 
 INTO A BOOK BY THE 
 ROYCROFTERS, AT 
 THEIR SHOP, WHICH 
 IS IN EAST AURORA, 
 NEW YORK, MCMIV 
 
 JH 
 
I DO not think it possible for a better man to be injured by a worse. 
 * * * * To a good man nothing is evil, neither while living nor 
 when dead, nor are his concerns neglected by the gods. 
 
 THE REPUBLIC. 
 
Socrates 
 
CRATES 
 
 |T was four hundred and seventy years 
 before Christ that Socrates was born. 
 He never wrote a book, never made a 
 formal address, held no public office, 
 wrote no letters, yet his words have 
 come down to us sharp, vivid and crys 
 talline. His face, form and features are 
 to us familiar his goggle eyes, bald 
 head, snub nose and bow legs! The 
 habit of his life his goings and comings, 
 his arguments and wrangles, his in 
 finite leisure, his sublime patience, his 
 perfect faith all these things are plain, 
 lifting the man out of the commonplace 
 and setting him apart. 
 The " Memorabilia" of Xenophon and 
 the " Dialogues" of Plato give us Bos- 
 wellian pictures of the man. 
 Knowing the man, we know what he 
 would do ; and knowing what he did, we 
 know the man. 
 
 Socrates was the son of Sophroniscus, 
 a stone-cutter, and his wife Phaenarete. 
 In boyhood he used to carry dinner to 
 his father, and sitting by, he heard the 
 men, in their free and easy way, discuss 
 the plans of Pericles. These workmen 
 didn t know the plans they were only 
 privates in the ranks, but they exer- 
 
SOCRATES 
 
 cised their prerogatives to criticize, and while working 
 to assist, did right royally disparage and condemn. Like 
 sailors who love their ship, and grumble at grub and 
 grog, yet on shore will allow no word of disparage 
 ment to be said, so did these Athenians love their city, 
 and still condemn its rulers they exercised the laborer s 
 right to damn the man who gives him work. 
 Little did the workmen guess little did his father 
 guess that this pug-nosed boy, making pictures in the 
 sand with his big toe, would also leave his footprints 
 on the sands of time, and a name that would rival that 
 of Phidias and Pericles ! 
 
 Socrates was a product of the Greek renaissance. 
 Great men come in groups, like comets sent from afar. 
 Athens was seething with thought and feeling : Pericles 
 was giving his annual oration worth thousands of 
 weekly sermons and planning his dream in marble ; 
 Phidias was cutting away the needless portions of the 
 white stone of Pentelicus and liberating wondrous 
 forms of beauty ; Sophocles was revealing the possi 
 bilities of the stage ; ^schylus was pointing out the 
 way as a playwright, and the passion for physical beauty 
 was everywhere an adjunct of religion. 
 Pre-natal influences, it seems, played their part in 
 shaping the destiny of Socrates. His mother followed 
 the profession of Sairy Gamp, and made her home with 
 a score of families, as she was needed. The trained 
 nurse is often untrained, and is a regular encyclopedia 
 of esoteric family facts. She wipes her mouth on her 
 
SOCRATES 3 
 
 apron and is at home in every room of the domicile from 
 parlor to pantry. Then as now she knew the trials and 
 troubles of her clients, and all domestic underground 
 happenings requiring adjustment she looked after as 
 she was "dispoged." 
 
 Evidently Phsenarete was possessed of considerable 
 personality, for we hear of her being called to Mythseia 
 on a professional errand shortly before the birth of 
 Socrates; and in a month after his birth, a similar call 
 came from another direction, and the bald little philos 
 opher was again taken along from which we assume, 
 following in the footsteps of Conan Doyle, that Soc 
 rates was no bottle baby. The world should be grateful 
 to Phsenarete that she did not honor the Sairy Gamp 
 precedents and observe the Platonic maxim, "Sandal- 
 makers usually go barefoot : she gave her customers 
 an object lesson in well-doing as well as teaching them 
 by precept. None of her clients did so well as she 
 even though her professional duties were so exacting 
 that domesticity to her was merely incidental. It was 
 only another case of the amateur distancing the pro 
 fessional. 
 
 FROM babyhood we lose sight of Socrates until 
 we find him working at his father s trade as a 
 sculptor. Certainly he had a goodly degree of 
 skill, for the "Graces" which he carved were fair and 
 beautiful and admired by many. This was enough, he 
 
SOCRATES 
 
 just wanted to reveal what he could do, and then to 
 show that to have no ambition was his highest ambi 
 tion, he threw down his tools and took off his apron for 
 good. He was then thirty-five years old. Art is a zeal 
 ous mistress, and demands that "thou shalt have no 
 other gods before me." Socrates did not concentrate on 
 art. His mind went roaming the world of philosophy, 
 and for his imagination the universe was hardly large 
 enough. 
 
 I said that he deliberately threw down his tools; but 
 possibly this was by request, for he had acquired a 
 habit of engaging in much wordy argument and letting 
 the work slide. He went out upon the streets to talk, 
 and in the guise of a learner, he got in close touch with 
 all the wise men of Athens by stopping them and ask 
 ing questions. In physique he was immensely strong 
 hard work had developed his muscles, plain fare had 
 made him oblivious to the fact that he had a stomach, 
 and as for nerves, he had none to speak of. 
 Socrates did not marry until he was about forty. His 
 wife was scarcely twenty. Of his courtship we know 
 nothing, but sure it is Socrates did not go and sue for 
 the lady s hand in the conventional way, nor seek to 
 gain the consent of her parents by proving his worldly 
 prospects. His apparel was costly as his purse could 
 buy, not gaudy nor expressed in fancy. It consisted of 
 the one suit that he wore, for we hear of his repairing 
 beyond the walls to bathe in the stream, and of his 
 washing his clothing, hanging it on the bushes and 
 
SOCRATES 5 
 
 waiting for it to dry before going back to the city. As for 
 shoes, he had one pair, and since he never once wore 
 them, going barefoot summer and winter, it is presumed 
 that they lasted well. One cannot imagine Socrates in 
 an opera hat in fact, he wore no hat, and he was bald. 
 I record the fact so as to confound those zealous ones 
 who badger the bald as a business, who have recipes 
 concealed on their persons, and who assure us that 
 baldness has its rise in head-gear. 
 
 Socrates belonged to the leisure class. His motto was, 
 KNOW THYSELF. He considered himself of much 
 more importance than any statue he could make, and to 
 get acquainted with himself as being much more de 
 sirable than to know physical phenomena. His plan of 
 knowing himself was to ask everybody questions, and 
 in their answers he would get a true reflection of his 
 own mind. His intellect would reply to theirs, and if 
 his questions dissolved their answers into nothingness, 
 the supremacy of his own being would be apparent ; and 
 if they proved his folly he was equally grateful if he 
 was a fool, his desire was to know it. So sincere was 
 Socrates in this wish to know himself that never did he 
 show the slightest impatience nor resentment when the 
 argument was turned upon him. 
 
 He looked upon his mind as a second party, and sat off 
 and watched it work. Should it become confused or 
 angered, it would be proof of its insufficiency and little 
 ness. If Socrates ever came to know himself, he knew 
 this fact : as an economic unit he was an absolute fail- 
 
SOCRATES 
 
 ure; but as a gadfly, stinging men into thinking for 
 themselves, he was a success. A specialist is a deformity 
 contrived by Nature to get the work done. Socrates 
 was a thought-specialist, and the laziest man who ever 
 lived in a strenuous age. The desire of his life was to 
 live without desire which is essentially the thought 
 of Nirvana. He had the power never to exercise his 
 power excepting in knowing himself. 
 He accepted every fact, circumstance and experience 
 of life, and counted it gain. Life to him was a precious 
 privilege, and what were regarded as unpleasant expe 
 riences were as much a part of life as the pleasant ones. 
 He who succeeds in evading unpleasant experiences 
 cheats himself out of so much life. You know yourself 
 by watching yourself to see what you do when you are 
 thwarted, crossed, contradicted, or deprived of certain 
 things supposed to be desirable. If you always get the 
 desirable things, how do you know what you would do 
 if you didn t have them? You exchange so much life 
 for the thing, that s all, and thus do we see Socrates 
 anticipating Emerson s Essay on Compensation. Every 
 thing is bought with a price all things are of equal 
 value no one can cheat you, for to be cheated is a not 
 undesirable experience, and in the act, if you are really 
 filled with the thought, " Know Thyself," you get the 
 compensation by an increase in mental growth. 
 However, to deliberately go in search of experience, 
 Socrates said, would be a mistake, because then you 
 would so multiply impressions that none would be of 
 
SOCRATES 
 
 any avail and your life would be burned out. To clutch 
 life by the throat and demand that it shall stand and 
 deliver is to place yourself so out of harmony with your 
 environment that you will get nothing. 
 Above all things, we must be calm, self-centered, never 
 anxious, and be always ready to accept whatever the 
 gods may send. The world will come to us if we only 
 wait. It will be seen that Socrates is at once the oldest 
 and most modern of thinkers. He was the first to ex 
 press the New Thought. A thought, to Socrates, was 
 more of a reality than a block of marble a moral prin 
 ciple was just as persistent as a chemical agent. 
 
 THE silken-robed and perfumed Sophist was sport 
 and game for Socrates. For him Socrates recog 
 nized no closed season. If Socrates ever came 
 near losing his temper, it was in dealing with this Ed 
 mund Russell of Athens. Grant Allen used to say, " The 
 spores of everything are everywhere and a certain con 
 dition breeds a certain microbe." A period of prosperity 
 always warms into life this social paragon who lives in 
 a darkened room hung with maroon drapery, where 
 incense is burned and a turbaned Hindoo carries your 
 card to the master, who faces the sun and exploits a 
 prie-dieu when the wind blows East. Athens had these 
 men of refined elegance, Rome evolved them, London 
 has had her day, New York knows them, and Chicago 
 I trust I will not be contradicted when I say that 
 
8 SOCRATES 
 
 Chicago understands her business ! And so we find these 
 folks who cultivate a pellucid passivity, a phthisicky 
 whisper, a supercilious smirk, and who win our smoth 
 ered admiration and give us goose-flesh by imparting a 
 taubric tinge of mystery to all their acts and words, thus 
 proving to the assembled guests that they are the Qual 
 ity, and Wisdom will die with them. 
 This lingo of meaningless words and high-born phrases 
 always set Socrates by the ears, and when he would 
 corner a Sophist, he would very shortly prick his pretty 
 toy balloon, until at last the tribe fled him as a pesti 
 lence. Socrates stood for sanity. The Sophist repre 
 sented moonshine gone to seed, and these things, 
 proportioned ill, drive men transverse. 
 Extremes equalize themselves : the pendulum swings 
 as far this way as it does that. The saponaceous Soph 
 ist who renounced the world and yet lived wholly in a 
 world of sense, making vacuity pass legal-tender for 
 spirituality, and the priest who, mystified with a 
 mumble of words, evolved a Diogenes who lived in a 
 tub, wore regally a robe of rags, and once went into the 
 temple, and cracking a louse on the altar rail, said 
 solemnly, " Thus does Diogenes sacrifice to all the gods 
 at once!" Q In Socrates was a little jollity and much 
 wisdom pickled in the scorn of Fortune ; but the Soph 
 ists inwardly bowed down and worshiped the fickle 
 dame on idolatrous knees. Socrates won immortality 
 because he did not want it, and the Sophists secured 
 oblivion because they deserved it. 
 
SOCRATES 
 
 WE hear of Socrates going to Aspasia, and 
 holding long conversations with her "to 
 sharpen his mind." Aspasia did not go out in 
 society much, she and Pericles lived very simply. It is 
 worth while to remember that the most intellectual 
 woman of her age was democratic enough to be on 
 friendly terms with the bare-foot philosopher who went 
 about regally wrapped in a table-spread. Socrates did 
 not realize the flight of time when making calls he 
 went early and stayed late. Possibly pre-natal influences 
 caused him to often call before breakfast and remain 
 until after supper. 
 
 Just imagine Pericles, Aspasia and Socrates sitting at 
 table with Walter Savage Landor behind the arras 
 making notes ! Doubtless Socrates and Mrs. Pericles 
 did most of the talking, while the First Citizen of 
 Athens listened and smiled indulgently now and then 
 as his mind wandered to construction contracts and 
 walking delegates. Pericles, the builder of a city Peri 
 cles, first among practical men since time began, and 
 Socrates, who jostles history for first place among 
 those, have done nothing but talk imagine these two 
 eating melons together, while Aspasia, gentle and kind, 
 talks of spirit being more than matter and love being 
 greater than the Parthenon ! 
 
 Socrates is usually spoken of as regarding women with 
 slight favor, but I have noticed that your genus woman- 
 hater holds the balance true by really being a woman- 
 lover. If a man is enough interested in women to hate 
 
io SOCRATES 
 
 them, note this, he is only searching for the right 
 woman, the woman who compares favorably with the 
 ideal woman in his own mind. He measures every wom 
 an by this standard, just as Ruskin compared all 
 modern painters with Turner and discarded them with 
 fitting adjectives as they receded from what he regard 
 ed as the perfect type. If Ruskin had not been much 
 interested in painters, would he have written scathing 
 criticisms about them ? 
 
 In several instances we hear of Socrates reminding his 
 followers that they are "weak as women," and he was 
 the first to say "woman is an undeveloped man." But 
 Socrates was a great admirer of human beauty, whether 
 physical or spiritual, and his abrupt way of stopping 
 beautiful women on the streets and bluntly telling them 
 they were beautiful, doubtless often confirmed their 
 suspicions. And thus far he was pleasing, but when he 
 went on to ask questions so as to ascertain whether 
 their mental estate compared with their physical, why, 
 that was slightly different. It is good to hear him say, 
 "there is no sex in intellect," and also, "I have long 
 held the opinion that the female sex is nothing inferior 
 to ours, save only in strength of body and possibly in 
 steadiness of judgment." And Xenophon quotes him 
 thus, "It is more delightful to hear the virtue of a 
 good woman described, than if the painter Zeuxis were 
 to show me the portrait of the fairest woman in the 
 world." 
 Perhaps Thackeray is right when he says, "The men 
 
SOCRATES 
 
 who appreciate woman most are those who have felt 
 the sharpness of her claws." That is to say, things show 
 up best on the darkest background. If so, let us give 
 Xantippe due credit. She tested the temper of the sage 
 by railing on him and deluging him with Socratic 
 propositions, not waiting for the answers; she often 
 broke in with a broom upon his introspective efforts to 
 know himself; if this were not enough, she dashed 
 buckets of scrubbing water over him; presents that 
 were sent him by admiring friends she used as targets 
 for her mop and wit ; if he invited friends with faith plus 
 to dine, she upset the table, dishes and all, before them 
 not much to their loss; she occasionally elbowed her 
 way through a crowd where her husband was enter 
 taining the listeners upon the divine harmonies, and 
 would tear off his robe and lead him home by the ear. 
 But these things never ruffled Socrates he might roll 
 his eyes in comic protest at the audience as he was be 
 ing led away captive, but no resentment was shown. 
 He had the strength of a Hercules, but he was a far 
 better non-resistant than Tolstoy, because he took his 
 medicine with a wink, while Fate is obliged to hold 
 the nose of the author of " Anna Karenina," who never 
 sees the comedy of an inward struggle and an outward 
 compliance, any more than does the benedict, safely 
 entrenched under the bed, who shouts out, "I defy 
 thee, I defy thee ! " as did Mephisto when Goethe thrust 
 him into Tophet. 
 
SOCRATES 
 
 THE popular belief is that Xantippe, the wife of 
 Socrates, was a shrew, and had she lived in New 
 England in Cotton Mather s time would have 
 been a candidate for the ducking-stool. Socrates said he 
 married her for discipline. A man in East Aurora, how 
 ever, has recently made it plain to himself that Xan 
 tippe was possessed of a great and acute intellect. She 
 knew herself, and she knew her liege as he never did 
 he was too close to his subject to get the perspective. 
 She knew that under the right conditions his name 
 would live as one of the world s great teachers, and so 
 she set herself to supply the conditions. She deliber 
 ately sacrificed herself and put her character in a wrong 
 light before the world in order that she might benefit 
 the world. Most women have a goodly grain of ambition 
 for themselves, and if their husbands have genius, their 
 business is not to prove it, but to show that they them 
 selves are not wholly commonplace. 
 Not so Xantippe she was quite willing to be misun 
 derstood that her husband might live. 
 What the world calls a happy marriage is not wholly 
 good ease is bought -with a price. Suppose Xantippe 
 and Socrates had settled down and lived in a cottage 
 with a vine growing over the portico, and two rows of 
 hollyhocks leading from the front gate to the door ; a 
 pathway of coal ashes lined off with broken crockery, 
 and inside the house all sweet, clean and tidy; Socrates 
 earning six drachma a day carving marble, with double 
 pay for overtime, and he handing the pay envelope over 
 
SOCRATES 13 
 
 to her each Saturday night, keeping out just enough for 
 tobacco, and she putting a tidy sum in the /Egean Sav 
 ings Bank every month why, what then ? 
 Well, that would have been an end to Socrates. Xan- 
 tippe was big enough to know this and so she supplied 
 the domestic cantharides, and drove him out upon the 
 streets he grew to care very little for her, not much 
 for the children, nothing for his home. She drove him 
 out into the world of thought, instead of allowing him 
 to settle down and be content with her society. 
 I once knew a sculptor another sculptor an elemental 
 bit of nature, original and, better still, aboriginal. He 
 used to sleep out under the stars so to wake up in the 
 night and see the march of the Milky Way, and watch 
 the Pleiades disappear over the brink of the western 
 horizon. He wore a flannel shirt, thick-soled shoes, and 
 overalls, no hat, and his hair was thick and coarse as 
 a horse s mane. This man had talent, and he had sub 
 lime conceptions, great dreams, and splendid aspira 
 tions. His soul was struggling to find expression. 
 " Leave him alone," I said " He needs time to ripen. 
 He is a Michael Angelo in embryo !" 
 Did he ripen ? Not he. He married a Wellesley girl of 
 good family. She, too, had ideas about art she painted 
 china buttons for shirt-waists, embroidered chasubles, 
 and sang "The Rosary" in a raucous Quinsigamond 
 voice. The big barbarian became respectable, and the 
 last time I saw him he wore a Tuxedo and was passing 
 out platitudes and raspberry shrub at a lawn party. 
 
14 SOCRATES 
 
 The Wellesley girl had tamed her bear they were very 
 happy, he assured me, and she was preparing a course 
 of lectures for him which he was to give at Mrs. Jack 
 Gardner s. A Xantippe might have saved him. 
 
 A CAPTIOUS friend once suggested to Socrates, 
 this: " If you prize the female nature so highly, 
 how does it happen that you do not instruct 
 Xantippe?" a rather indelicate proposition to put to 
 a married man. And Socrates, quite unruffled, replied, 
 " My friend, if one wants to learn horsemanship, does 
 he choose a tame horse or one with mettle and a hard 
 mouth ? I wish to converse with all sorts of people, and 
 I believe that nothing can disturb me after I grow ac 
 customed to the tongue of Xantippe." 
 Again we hear of his suggesting that his wife s scold 
 ing tongue may have been only the buzzing of his own 
 waspish thoughts, and if he did not call forth these qual 
 ities in her they would not otherwise have appeared. 
 And so, beholding her impatience and unseemliness, he 
 would realize the folly of an ill temper and thus learn by 
 antithesis to curb his own. Old Dr. Johnson used to have 
 a regular menagerie of wrangling, jangling, quibbling, 
 dissatisfied pensioners in his household ; and so far as 
 we know he never learned the truth that all pensioners 
 are dissatisfied. " If I can stand things at home, I can 
 stand things anywhere," he once said to Boswell, as 
 much as to say, " If I can stand things at home, I can 
 
SOCRATES 15 
 
 stand even you." Goldsmith referred to Boswell as a 
 cur, Garrick said he thought he was a burr. Socrates 
 had a similar satellite by the name of Cheropho, a dark, 
 dirty, weazened, and awfully serious little man of the 
 tribe of Buttinsky, who sat breathlessly trying to catch 
 the pearls that fell from the ample mouth of the phi 
 losopher. Aristophanes referred to Cheropho as " Soc 
 rates bat," a play-off on Minerva and her bird of night, 
 the owl. There were quite a number of these bats," 
 and they seemed to labor under the same hallucination 
 that catches the lady students of the Pundit Vivake- 
 nanda H. Darmapala: they think that wisdom is to be 
 imparted by word of mouth, and that by listening hard 
 and making notes one can become very wise. Socrates 
 said again and again, " Character is a matter of growth 
 and all I hope to do is to make you think for yourselves." 
 Q That chilly exclusiveness which regards a man s 
 house as his castle, his home, the one sacred spot, and 
 all outside as the cold and cruel world, was not the ideal 
 of Socrates. His family was his circle of friends, and 
 these were of all classes and conditions, from the First 
 Citizen to beggars on the street. 
 
 He made no charge for his teaching, took up no collec 
 tions, and never inaugurated a Correspondence School. 
 America has produced one man who has been called 
 a reincarnation of Socrates ; that man was Bronson 
 Alcott, who peddled clocks and forgot the flight of time 
 whenever any one would listen to him expound the 
 unities. Alcott once ran his wheelbarrow into a neigh- 
 
16 SOCRATES 
 
 bor s garden and was proceeding to load his motor-car 
 with cabbages, beets and potatoes. Glancing up, the 
 philosopher saw the owner of the garden looking at him 
 steadfastly over the wall. " Don t look at me that way," 
 called Alcott with a touch of un-Socratic acerbity, 
 " Don t look at me that way I need these things more 
 than you! " and went on with the annexation. 
 The idea that all good things are for use and belong to 
 all who need them, was a favorite maxim of Socrates. 
 The furniture in his house never exceeded the exemp 
 tion clause. Once we find him saying that Xantippe 
 complained because he did not buy her a stew-pan, but 
 since there was nothing to put in it, he thought her 
 protests ill-founded. 
 
 The climate of Athens is about like that of Southern 
 California one does not need to bank food and fuel 
 against the coming of winter. Life can be adjusted to 
 its simplest forms. From his fortieth to his fiftieth year, 
 Socrates worked every other Thursday; then he re 
 tired from active life, and Xantippe took in plain sew 
 ing *r ir 
 
 Socrates was surely not a good provider, but if he had 
 provided more for his family, he would have provided 
 less for the world. The wealthy Crito would have 
 turned his pockets inside out for Socrates, but Socrates 
 had all he wished, and explained that as it was he had 
 to dance at home in order to keep down the adipose. 
 Aristides, who was objectionable because he so shaped 
 his conduct that he was called "The Just," and got 
 
SOCRATES 17 
 
 himself ostracised, was one of his dear friends. Antis- 
 thenes, the original Cynic, used to walk six miles and 
 back every day to hear Socrates talk. The Cynic was a 
 rich man, but so captivated was he with the preaching 
 of Socrates, that he adopted the life of simplicity and 
 dressed in rags, boycotting both the barber and the 
 bath. On one occasion Socrates looked sharply at a 
 rent in the cloak of his friend and said, "Ah, Antisthenes, 
 through that hole in your cloak I see your vanity ! 
 Xenophon sat at the feet of Socrates for a score of 
 years, and then wrote his recollections of him as a vin 
 dication of his character. Euclid of Megara was nearly 
 eighty when he came to Socrates as a pupil, trying to 
 get rid of his ill temper and habit of ironical reply. Cebes 
 and Simmias left their native country and became Greek 
 citizens for his sake. Charmides, the pampered son of 
 wealthy parents, learned pedagogics by being shown 
 that in households where there were many servants, 
 the children got cheated out of their rightful education 
 because others did all the work, and to deprive a 
 child of the privilege of being useful was to rob him of 
 so much life. ./Eschines, the ambitious son of a sausage- 
 maker, was advised by Socrates to borrow money of 
 himself on long time without interest, by reducing his 
 wants. So pleased was the recipient with this advice, 
 that he went to publishing Socratic dialogues as a busi 
 ness, and had the felicity to fail with tidy liabilities. 
 But the two men who loom largest in the life of Socrates 
 are Alcibiades and Plato characters very much unlike. 
 
is SOCRATES 
 
 Q Alcibiades was twenty-one years old when we find 
 him first. He was considered the handsomest young 
 man in Athens. He was aristocratic, proud, insolent, 
 and needlessly rich. He had a passion for gambling, 
 horse-racing, dog-fighting, and indulged in the churchly 
 habit of doing that which he ought not and leaving un 
 done that which he should have done. He was worse 
 than that degenerate scion of a proud ancestry, who 
 a-knieppeing went with his lady friends in the Cincinnati 
 fountain, after the opera, on a wager. He whipped a 
 man who admitted he did not have a copy of the Iliad 
 in his house ; publicly destroyed the record of a charge 
 against one of his friends; and when his wife applied 
 for a divorce, he burst into the court-room and vacated 
 proceedings by carrying the lady off by force. At ban 
 quets he would raise a disturbance, and while he was 
 being forcibly ejected from one door, his servants would 
 sneak in another and steal the silver-ware, which he 
 would give away as charity. He also indulged in the 
 Mark Antony trick of rushing into houses at night and 
 pulling good folks out of bed by the heels, and then run 
 ning away before they were barely awake. 
 His introduction to Socrates came in an attempt to 
 break up a Socratic prayer-meeting. Socrates succeeded 
 in getting the roysterer to listen long enough to turn 
 the laugh on him and show all concerned that the life 
 of a rowdy was the life of a fool. Alcibiades had ex 
 pected Socrates to lose his temper, but it was Alcibiades 
 who gave way, and blurted out that he could not hope 
 
SOCRATES 19 
 
 to beat his antagonist talking, but he would like to 
 wrestle with him. 
 
 Legend has it that Socrates gave the insolent young 
 man a shock by instantly accepting his challenge. In 
 the bout that followed, the philosopher, built like a go 
 rilla, got a half- Nelson on his man, who was a little the 
 worse for wine, and threw him so hard, jumping on his 
 prostrate form with his knees, that the aristocratic 
 hoodlum was laid up for a moon. Ever after Alcibiades 
 had a thorough respect for Socrates. They became fast 
 friends, and whenever the old man talked in the Agora, 
 Alcibiades was on hand to keep order. 
 When war came with Sparta and her allies in the Pelo 
 ponnesus they enlisted, Socrates going as corporal and 
 Alcibiades as captain. They occupied the same tent 
 during the entire campaign. Socrates proved a fearless 
 soldier and walked the winter ice in bare feet, often pull 
 ing his belt one hole tighter in lieu of breakfast, to show 
 the complaining soldiers that endurance was the thing 
 that won the battles. At the battle of Delium, when 
 there was a rout, Xenophon says Socrates walked off 
 the field leisurely, arm in arm with the general, ex 
 plaining the nature of harmony. 
 
 Through the influence of Socrates, the lawless Alci 
 biades was tamed and became almost a model citizen, 
 although his head was hardly large enough for a phi 
 losopher. 
 
 "Say what you will, you ll find it all in Plato," said 
 Emerson. If Socrates had done nothing else but give 
 
20 SOCRATES 
 
 bent to the mind of Plato, he would deserve the grati 
 tude of the centuries. Plato is the mine to which all 
 thinkers turn for treasure. When they first met, Plato 
 was twenty and Socrates sixty, and for ten years, to the 
 day of Socrates death, they were together almost con 
 stantly. Plato died aged eighty-one, and for fifty years 
 he had lived but to record the dialogues of Socrates. It 
 was curiosity that first attracted this fine youth to the 
 old man Socrates was so uncouth that he was amus 
 ing. Plato was interested in politics, and like most 
 Athenian youths, was intent on having a good time. 
 However, he was no rowdy, like Alcibiades ; he was 
 suave, gracious, and elegant in all of his acts. He had 
 been taught by the Sophists, and the desire of his life 
 was to seem, rather than to be. By very gentle stages, 
 Plato began to perceive that to make an impression on 
 society was not worth working for the thing to do was 
 to be yourself, and yourself at your best. And we can 
 give no better answer to the problem of life than Plato 
 gives in the words of Socrates, " It is better to be than 
 to seem. To live honestly and deal justly is the meat of 
 the whole matter." 
 
 Plato was not a disciple he was big enough not to ape 
 the manners and eccentricities of his Master he saw, 
 beneath the rough husk and beyond the grotesque out 
 side, the great controlling purpose in the life of Socrates. 
 He would be himself and himself at his best, and he 
 would seek to satisfy the Voice within, rather than to 
 try to please the populace. Plato still wore his purple 
 
SOCRATES 21 
 
 cloak, and the elegance and grace of his manner were 
 not thrown aside. 
 
 "Wouldn t it have been worth our while to travel miles 
 to see these friends the one old, bald, short, fat, 
 squint-eyed, bare-foot, and the other with all the poise 
 of aristocratic youth tall, courtly and handsome, wear 
 ing his robe with easy, regal grace. And so they have 
 walked and talked adown the centuries, side by side, 
 the most perfect example that can be named of that fine 
 affection which often exists between teacher and 
 scholar. 
 
 Plato s " Republic," especially, gives us an insight into 
 a very great & lofty character. From his tower of spec 
 ulation, Plato scanned the future, & saw that the ideal of 
 education was to have it continue through life, for none 
 but the life of growth and development ever satisfies. 
 And love itself turns to ashes of roses if not used to 
 help the soul in her upward flight. It was Plato who 
 first said, " There is no profit where no pleasure s 
 ta en." He further perceived that in the life of educa 
 tion, the sexes must move hand in hand ; and he also 
 saw that while religions are many and seemingly di 
 verse, that goodness and kindness are forever one. 
 His faith in the immortality of the soul was firm, but 
 whether we are to live in another world or not, he said 
 there is no higher wisdom than to live here and now 
 live our highest and best cultivate the receptive mind 
 and the hospitable heart, "partaking of all good things 
 in moderation." 
 
22 SOCRATES 
 
 It takes these two to make the whole. There is no vir 
 tue in poverty no merit in rags the uncouth qualities 
 in Socrates were not a recommendation. Yet he was 
 himself. But Plato made good, in his own character, all 
 that Socrates lacked. Some one has said that Fitzgerald s 
 Omar is two-thirds Fitzgerald and one-third Omar. In 
 his books, Plato modestly puts his wisest maxims into 
 the mouth of his master, and just how much Plato and 
 how much Socrates there is in the "Dialogues," we 
 will never know until we get beyond the River Styx. 
 
 SOCRATES was deeply attached to Athens, and 
 he finally became the best known figure in the 
 city. He criticized in his own frank, fearless way 
 all the doings of the times nothing escaped him. He 
 was a self-appointed investigating committee in all 
 affairs of state, society and religion. Hypocrisy, pretense, 
 affectation, and ignorance trembled at his approach. He 
 was feared, despised and loved. But those who loved 
 him were as one in a hundred. He became a public nui 
 sance. The charge against him was just plain heresy 
 he had spoken disrespectfully of the gods and through 
 his teaching he had defiled the youth of Athens. Ample 
 warning had been given him, and opportunity to run 
 away was provided, but he stuck like a leech, asking the 
 cost of banquets and making suggestions about all public 
 affairs. 
 He was arrested, bailed by Plato and Crito, and tried 
 
SOCRATES 23 
 
 before a jury of five hundred citizens. Socrates insisted 
 on managing his own case. A rhetorician prepared an 
 address of explanation, and the culprit was given to un 
 derstand that if he read this speech to his judges and 
 said nothing else, it would be considered as an apology 
 and he would be freed the intent of the trial being more 
 to teach the old man a lesson in minding his own busi 
 ness than to injure him. 
 
 But Socrates replied to his well-meaning friend, " Think 
 you I have not spent my whole life in preparing for this 
 one thing? " And he handed back the smoothly polished 
 manuscript with a smile. Montaigne says, " Should a 
 suppliant voice have been heard out of the mouth of 
 Socrates now ; should that lofty virtue strike sail in the 
 very height of its glory, and his rich and powerful nature 
 be committed to flowing rhetoric as a defense ? Never ! 
 Q[ Socrates cross-questioned his accusers in the true 
 Socratic style and showed that he had never spoken 
 disrespectfully of the gods, he had only spoken disre 
 spectfully of their absurd conception of the gods. And 
 here is a thought which is well to consider even yet : 
 The so-called "infidel" is often a man of great gentle 
 ness of spirit, and his disbelief is not in God, but in 
 some little man s definition of God a distinction the 
 little man, being without humor, can never see. 
 When Socrates had confounded his accusers, this time 
 not giving them the satisfaction of the last word, he 
 launched out on a general criticism of the city, and told 
 where its rulers were gravely at fault. Being cautioned 
 
24 SOCRATES 
 
 to bridle his tongue, he replied : " When your generals at 
 Potidsea and Amphipolis and Delium assigned my place 
 in the battle, I remained there, did my work, and faced 
 the peril ; and think you that when Deity has assigned 
 me my duty at this pass in life I should, through fear of 
 death, evade it, and shirk my post ? " 
 This man appeared at other times, to some, as an idle 
 loafer, but now he arose to a sublime height. He re 
 peated with emphasis all he had ever said against their 
 foolish superstitions, and arraigned the waste and fu 
 tility of the idle rich. The power of the man was re 
 vealed as never before, and those who had intended to 
 let him go with a fine, now thought it best to dispose 
 of him. The safety of the state was endangered by such 
 an agitator the question of religion is really not what 
 has sent the martyrs to the stake it is the politician, 
 not the priest, who fears the heretic. 
 By a small majority, Socrates was found guilty and 
 sentenced to death. Let Plato tell of that last hour he 
 has done it once for all : 
 
 "When he had done speaking, Crito said : " And have you 
 
 any commands for us, Socrates anything to say about 
 
 your children, or any other matter in which we can 
 
 serve you?" 
 
 " Nothing particular," he said, " only, as I have always 
 
 told you, I would have you to look to your own conduct ; 
 
 that is a service which you may always be doing to me 
 
 and mine as well as to yourselves." * * * * 
 
 " We will do our best," said Crito. " But in what way 
 
 would you have us bury you ? " 
 
SOCRATES 25 
 
 " In any way that you like; only you must get hold of 
 me, and take care that I do not walk away from you." 
 Then he turned to us, and added with a smile : " I can 
 not make Crito believe that I am the same Socrates 
 who have been talking and conducting the argument ; he 
 fancies that I am the other Socrates whom he will soon 
 see, a dead body and he asks, * How shall he bury me ? 
 And though I have spoken many words in the endeavor 
 to show that when I have drunk the poison I shall leave 
 you and go to the joys of the blessed, these words of 
 mine, with which I comforted you and myself, have 
 had, as I perceive, no effect upon Crito. And therefore 
 I want you to be surety for me now, as he was surety 
 for me at the trial : but let the promise be of another 
 sort ; for he was my surety to the judges that I would 
 remain, but you must be my surety to him that I shall 
 not remain, but go away and depart; and then he will 
 suffer less at my death, and not be grieved when he sees 
 my body being burned. I would not have him sorrow at 
 my hard lot, or say at the burial, * Thus we lay out Soc 
 rates, or, Thus we follow him to the grave or bury 
 him; for false words are not only evil in themselves, 
 but they infect the soul with evil. Be of good cheer then, 
 my dear Crito, and say that you are burying my body 
 only, and do with that as is usual, and as you think 
 best." #*#* 
 
 When he had spoken these words, he arose and went 
 into the bath-chamber with Crito, who bid us wait ; and 
 we waited, talking and thinking of the subject of dis 
 course, and also of the greatness of our sorrow ; he was 
 like a father of whom we were being bereaved, and we 
 were about to pass the rest of our lives as orphans. 
 When he had taken the bath, his children were brought 
 to him and the women of his family also came, and he 
 talked to them and gave them a few directions in the 
 
26 SOCRATES 
 
 presence of Crito ; and he then dismissed them and re 
 turned to us. 
 
 Now the hour of sunset was near. "When he came out, 
 he sat down with us again after his bath, but not much 
 was said. Soon the jailer, who was the servant, entered 
 and stood by him, saying: "To you, Socrates, whom I 
 know to be the noblest and gentlest and best of all who 
 ever came to this place, I will not impute the angry 
 feelings of other men, who rage and swear at me when, 
 in obedience to the authorities, I bid them drink the 
 poison indeed I am sure that you will not be angry 
 with me ; for others, as you are aware, and not I, are the 
 guilty cause. And so fare you well, and try to bear 
 lightly what must needs be; you know my errand." Then 
 bursting into tears, he turned away and went out. 
 Socrates looked at him and said: " I return your good 
 wishes, and will do as you bid." Then turning to us, he 
 said, " How charming the man is : since I have been in 
 prison, he has always been coming to see me, and at 
 times, he would talk to me, and was as good as could be 
 to me, and now see how generously he sorrows for me. 
 But we must do as he says, Crito; let the cup be 
 brought." 
 
 " Not yet," said Crito, "the sun is still upon the hilltops, 
 and many a one has taken the draught late, and after 
 the announcement has been made to him, he has eaten 
 and drunk and indulged in sensual delights; do not 
 hasten then, there is still time." 
 
 Socrates said: "Yes, Crito, and they of whom you 
 speak are right in doing thus, but I do not think that I 
 should gain anything by drinking the poison a little later; 
 I should be sparing and saving a life which is already 
 gone : I could only laugh at myself for this. Please then 
 to do as I say, and not to refuse me." 
 Crito, when he heard this, made a sign to the servant; 
 
SOCRATES 27 
 
 and the servant went in, and remained for some time, 
 and then returned with the jailer carrying the cup of 
 poison. Socrates said: "You, my good friend, who are 
 experienced in these matters, shall give me directions 
 how I am to proceed. The man answered: "You have 
 only to walk about until your legs are heavy, and then 
 to lie down, and the poison will act." At the same time, 
 he handed the cup to Socrates, who, in the easiest and 
 gentlest manner, without the least fear or change of 
 color or feature, looking at the man with his eyes, Echec- 
 rates, as his manner was, took the cup and said: 
 11 What do you say about making the libation out of this 
 cup to any god? May I, or not ? " The man answered : 
 " "We only prepare, Socrates, just so much as we deem 
 enough." "I understand," he said: "Yet I may and must 
 pray to the gods to prosper my journey from this to that 
 other world may this, then, which is my prayer, be 
 granted to me ? " Then holding the cup to his lips, quite 
 readily and cheerfully, he drank off the poison. And 
 hitherto most of us had been able to control our sorrow ; 
 but now we saw him drinking, and saw too, that he 
 had finished the draught, we could no longer forbear, 
 and in spite of myself, my own tears were flowing fast ; 
 so that I covered my face and wept over myself, for 
 certainly I was not weeping over him, but at the thought 
 of my own calamity in having lost such a companion. 
 Nor was I the first, for Crito, when he found himself 
 unable to restrain his tears, had got up and moved away, 
 and I followed; and at that moment, Apollodorus, who 
 had been weeping all the time, broke out into a loud cry, 
 which made cowards of us all. Socrates alone retained 
 his calmness : " What is this strange outcry ? " he said, 
 * * I sent away the women mainly in order that they might 
 not offend in this way, for I have heard that a man 
 should die in peace. Be quiet then, and have patience." 
 
28 
 
 SOCRATES 
 
 When we heard that, we were ashamed, and refrained 
 our tears; and he walked about until, as he said, his 
 legs began to fail, and then he lay on his back, accord 
 ing to the directions, and the man who gave him the 
 poison, now and then looked at his feet and legs ; and 
 after a while, he pressed his foot hard and asked him 
 if he could feel; and he said, "No"; and then his leg, and 
 so upwards and upwards, and showed us that he was 
 cold and stiff. And he felt them himself, and said: 
 " When the poison reaches the heart, that will be the 
 end." He was beginning to grow cold, when he un 
 covered his face, for he had covered himself up, and 
 said (they were his last words), " Crito, I owe a cock 
 to Asclepius; will you remember to pay the debt?" 
 "The debt shall be paid," said Crito; "Is there any 
 thing else?" There was no answer to this question; 
 but in a minute or two, a movement was heard, and the 
 attendants uncovered him ; his eyes were set, and Crito 
 closed his eyes and mouth. 
 
 Such was the end, Echecrates, of our friend, whom I 
 may truly call the wisest, the justest, and best of all the 
 men whom I have ever known. 
 
Vitile 
 
 TO THE HOMES OF GREAT PHILOSOPHERS 
 
 1 
 
 I Vol. XIV. FEBRUARY, 1904. No. a 
 
 By ELBERT HUBBARD 
 
 
 Single Copies, 25 cents * By the Year, $3.00 
 
LITTLE JOURNEYS 
 
 By Elbert Hubbard FOR 1904 
 
 WILL BE -TO. THE- HOMES OF 
 
 GREAT PHILOSOPHERS 
 
 THE SUBJECTS AS FOLLOWS 
 
 i Socrates 
 
 ^ Seneca 
 
 3 Hristotle 
 
 4 jMarcue Hurelius 
 
 5 Spinoza 
 
 6 Swedenborg 
 
 7 Xmmanuet Kant 
 8 Huguste Comte 
 9 Voltaire 
 10 fierbert Spencer 
 1 1 Schopenhauer 
 12 Renry Choreau 
 
 One booklet a month will be issued as usual, beginning Jan 
 uary First. The LITTLE JOURNEYS for Nineteen Hun 
 dred Four will be strictly de luxe In form and workmanship. 
 The type will be a new font of antique blackface ; the initials, 
 borders and bands designed especially for this work; a 
 frontispiece portrait from the original drawing made at our 
 Shop. The booklets will be stitched by hand with silk ^ 
 
 The price Twenty-five cents each, or $3.00 a year 
 
 Address THE ROYCROFTERS at their Shop, 
 which is at East Aurora, Erie County, New York 
 
 Entered at the postoffice at East Aurora, New York, for transmission as 
 second-class mail matter. Copyright, 1903, by Elbert Hubbard 4M4M4M 
 
Little 
 Journeys 
 
 TO THE HOMES OF 
 
 Great 
 Philosophers 
 
 Seneca 
 
 WRITTEN BY ELBERT 
 HUBBARD AND DONE 
 INTO A BOOK BY THE 
 ROYCROFTERS, AT 
 THEIR SHOP, WHICH 
 IS IN EAST AURORA, 
 NEW YORK, MCMIV 
 
IF we wish to be just judges of all things, let us first persuade 
 ourselves of this : that there is not one of us without fault : no man 
 is found who can acquit himself; and he who calls himself innocent 
 does so with reference to a witness, and not to his conscience. 
 
 LETTERS OF SENECA. 
 
Seneca 
 
N 
 
 |RUE Americans and patriotic, -who live 
 in York State, often refer you to the life 
 of Red Jacket as proof that "Seneca" 
 is an Iroquois Indian word. The In 
 dians, however, whom we call the 
 Senecas never called themselves thus 
 until they took to strong water and be 
 came civilized. Before that they were 
 the Tsonnundawaonas. The Dutch trad 
 ers, intent on pelts and pelf, called 
 them the Sinnekaas, meaning the valiant 
 or the beautiful. Then came that fateful 
 day when Rev. Peleg Spooner, the dis 
 coverer of the Erie Canal, journeyed 
 to Niagara Falls, and having influence 
 with the authorities at Washington, 
 gave to towns along the way these 
 names : Troy, Rome, Ithaca, Syracuse, 
 Ilion, Manlius, Homer, Corfu, Palmyra, 
 Utica, Delhi, Memphis and Marathon. 
 He really exhausted Grote s History 
 of Greece and Guizot s Rome, reveal 
 ing a most depressing lack of humor. 
 This classic flavor of the map of New 
 York is as surprising to English tourists 
 as was the discovery to Heinrich Hud 
 son when, on sailing up the North River, 
 he found on nearing Albany that the river 
 bore the same name as himself. 
 
30 SENECA 
 
 IN the eighteenth chapter of the Acts of the Apostles 
 we read of Paul being brought before Gallic, Pro 
 consul of Achaia. And the accusers, clutching the 
 bald and bow-legged bachelor by the collar, bawl out 
 to the Judge, " This fellow persuadeth men to worship 
 God contrary to law ! 
 
 And the little man is about to make reply, when Gallic 
 says, with a touch of impatience, " If it were a matter 
 of wrong or injustice, O ye Jews, reason would that I 
 should bear with you. But if it be a question of words 
 and names, and of your law, look ye to it, for I will be 
 no judge of such matters ! " And the account concludes, 
 " And he drave them from the judgment seat." 
 That is to say, he gave Saint Paul a nolle pros. Had 
 Gallic wished to be severe he might have put the qui 
 etus on Christianity for all time, for Saint Paul had all 
 there was of it stowed in his valiant head and heart. 
 Q Gallio was the elder brother of Seneca; his right name 
 being Annseus Seneca, but he changed it to Junius 
 Gallio, in honor of a patron who had especially be 
 friended him in youth. 
 
 Gallio seems to have been a man of good, sturdy, com 
 mon sense he could distinguish between right living 
 and a mumble of words, man-made rules, laws such as 
 heresy, blasphemy, Sabbath-breaking and marrying 
 one s deceased wife s sister. The Moqui Indians believe 
 that if any one is allowed to have a photograph taken 
 of himself he will dry up in a month and blow away. 
 Moreover, lists of names are not wanting with memo- 
 
SENECA 31 
 
 randa of times and places. In America there are yet 
 people who hotly argue as to what mode of baptism is 
 correct, who talk earnestly about the "saved" and 
 "lost," and will tell you of the "heathen" and those 
 who are "without the pale." They think that the 
 promise, " Seek and ye shall find, knock and it shall be 
 opened unto you," applies only to the Caucasian race. 
 Q In the earlier translations of Seneca there were 
 printed various letters that were supposed to have 
 passed between St. Paul and Seneca. Later editors 
 have dropped them out for lack of authenticity. But the 
 fact that St. Paul met Seneca s brother face to face, as 
 well as the fact that the brother was willing to discuss 
 right living, but had no time to waste on the Gemara 
 and theological quibbles, is undisputed. 
 
 IT was the proud boast of Augustus that he found 
 Rome a place of brick and left it a city of marble. 
 Commercial prosperity buys the leisure upon which 
 letters flourish. We flout the business man, but with 
 out him there would be no poets. Poets write for the 
 people who have time to read. And out of the surplus 
 that is left after securing food, we buy books. Augustus 
 built his marble city, and he also made Virgil, Horace, 
 Ovid and Livy possible. 
 
 Augustus reigned forty-four years, and it was in the 
 twenty-seventh year of his reign that there was born in 
 Bethlehem of Judea a Babe who was to revolutionize 
 
32 SENECA 
 
 the calendar. The Dean of Ely subtly puts forth the sug 
 gestive thought that if it had not been for Augustus we 
 might never have heard of Jesus. It was Augustus who 
 made Jerusalem a Roman Province; and it was the 
 economic and political policy of Augustus that evolved 
 the Scribes and Pharisees; and ill-gotten gains made 
 the hypocrites and publicans possible ; then comes 
 Pontius Pilate with his receding chin. 
 Jesus was seventeen years old when Augustus died 
 Augustus never heard of Him, and the Roman s un- 
 prophetic mind sent no search-light into the future, 
 neither did his eyes behold the Star in the East. 
 We are all making and shaping history, and how much, 
 none of us know, any more than did Augustus. 
 Julius Caesar had no son to take his place, so he named 
 his nephew, Augustus, his heir. Augustus was suc 
 ceeded by Tiberius, his adopted child. Caligula, suc 
 cessor of Tiberius, was the son of the great Roman 
 General, Germanicus. Caligula revealed his good sense 
 by drinking life to its lees in a reign of four years, dy 
 ing without heirs nature refusing to transmit either 
 infamy or genius. Claudius, an uncle of Caligula, ac 
 cepted the vacant place, as it seemed to him there was 
 no one else could fill it so well. Claudius had the felic 
 ity to be married four times, and left several sons, but 
 fate had it that he should be followed by Nero, his 
 step-son, who called himself " Caesar," yet in whose 
 veins there leaped not a single Caesarian corpuscle. 
 The guardian and tutor of Nero was Lucius Seneca, 
 
SENECA 33 
 
 the greatest, best and wisest man of his time, a fact I 
 here state in order to show the vanity of pedagogics. 
 Harking back once more to Augustus, let it be known 
 that but for him Seneca would probably have never left 
 his mark upon this bank and shoal of time. Seneca was 
 a Spaniard, born in Cordova, a Roman Province, that 
 was made so by Augustus under whose kindly and 
 placating influence all citizens of Hispania became 
 Roman citizens just as when California was admitted 
 to the Union every man in the state was declared a 
 naturalized citizen of the United States, the act being 
 performed for political purposes, based on the prece 
 dents of Augustus, and never done before nor since in 
 America. 
 
 Seneca was four years old -when his father s family 
 moved from Cordova to Rome ; this was three years 
 before the birth of Christ. Years pass, but the human 
 heart is forever the same. The elder Seneca, Marcus 
 Seneca, had ambitions he was a great man in Cor 
 dova : he could memorize a list of two thousand words. 
 These words had no relationship one to another, and 
 Marcus Seneca could not put words together so as to 
 make good sense, but his name was "Loisette": he 
 had a scheme of mnemonics that he imparted for a 
 consideration. He was also a teacher of elocution, and 
 had compiled a year-book of the sayings of Horace, 
 which secured him a knighthood. Augustus paid his 
 colonists pretty compliments, very much as England 
 gives out brevets to Strathcona and other worthy 
 
34 SENECA 
 
 Canadians, who raise troops of horse to fight England s 
 battles in South Africa -when duty calls. 
 Marcus Seneca made haste to move to Rome when 
 Augustus let down the bars. Rome was the center of 
 the art world, the home of letters, and all that made 
 for beauty and excellence. There were three boys and 
 a girl in the Seneca family. The elder boy, Annaeus, 
 was to become Gallic, the Roman governor, and have 
 his name mentioned in the most widely circulated book 
 the world has ever known ; the second boy was Lu 
 cius, the subject of this sketch; the younger boy, Mela, 
 was to become the father of Lucan, the poet. 
 The sister of Seneca became the wife of the Roman 
 governor of Egypt. It was at a time when the schem 
 ing rapacity of women was so much in evidence that 
 the Senate debated whether it should not forbid its 
 representatives abroad to be accompanied by their 
 wives. France has seen such times England and 
 America have glanced that way. Women, like men, 
 often do not know that the big prizes gravitate where 
 they belong they set traps for them, lie in wait and 
 consider prevarication and duplicity better than truth. 
 When women use their beauty, their wit and their 
 pink persons in politics trouble lies low around the 
 corner. But this sister of Seneca was never seen in 
 public unless it was at her husband s side ; she asked 
 no favors, and presents sent to her personally by pro 
 vincials were politely returned. The province praised 
 her, and perhaps what was better, did n t know her, 
 
SENECA 35 
 
 and begged the Emperor to send them more of such 
 excellent and virtuous women from which we infer 
 that virtue consists in minding one s own business. 
 C{ In making up a list of great mothers, do not leave 
 out Helvia, mother of three sons and a daughter who 
 made their mark upon the times. It is no small thing 
 to be a great mother ! 
 
 Women of intellect were not much appreciated then, 
 but Seneca dedicated his " Consolations," his best 
 book, to his mother. The very mintage of his mind 
 was for her, and again and again he tells of her insight, 
 her gentle wit and her appreciation of all that was 
 beautiful and best in the world of thought. In a letter 
 addressed to her when he was past forty, he says, 
 "You never stained your face with walnut juice nor 
 rouge ; you never wore gowns cut conspicuously low ; 
 your ornaments were a loveliness of mind and person 
 that time could not tarnish." 
 
 But the father had the knighthood and he called his 
 family to witness it at odd times and sundry. 
 In Rome, Marcus Seneca made head as he never did 
 in Cordova. There he was only Marcus Micawber : 
 but here his memory feats won him the distinction that 
 genius deserves. There is a grave question whether a 
 verbal memory does not go with a very mediocre in 
 tellect, but Marcus said this argument was put out by 
 a man with no memory worth mentioning. 
 Rome was at her ripest flower the petals were soon 
 to loosen and flutter to the ground, but nobody thought 
 
36 SENECA 
 
 so they never do. Everywhere the Roman legions 
 were victorious, and commerce sailed the seas in pros 
 perous ships. Power manifests itself in conspicuous 
 waste, and the habit grows until conspicuous waste 
 imagines itself power. Conditions in Rome had evolved 
 our old friend, the Sophist, the man who lived but to 
 turn an epigram, to soulfully contemplate a lily, to sigh 
 mysteriously, and cultivate the far-away look. These 
 men were elocutionists who gesticulated in curves, and 
 let the thought follow the attitude. They were not con 
 tent to be themselves, but chased the airy, fairy fabric 
 of a fancy and called it life. 
 
 THE pretense and folly of Roman society made 
 the Sophists possible like all sects they minis 
 tered to a certain cast of mind. Over against the 
 Sophists there were the Stoics, the purest, noblest and 
 sanest of all ancient cults, corresponding very closely 
 to our Quakers, before Worth and Wanamaker threw 
 them a hawser and took them in tow. It is a tide of feel 
 ing produces a sect, not a belief: primitive Christianity 
 was a revulsion from Phariseeism, and a "William Penn 
 and a wan Ann Lee form the antithesis of an o er- 
 vaulting, fantastic and soulless ritual. 
 The father of Seneca hung upon the favor of the Soph 
 ists : he taught them mnemonics, rhetoric and elocution, 
 and the fact that he was a courtly Spaniard was in his 
 favor we dote on a foreign accent and relish the thing 
 
SENECA 37 
 
 that comes from afar. C Marcus Seneca was getting 
 rich. He never perceived the absurdity of a life of 
 make-believe, but his son, Lucius Seneca, heir to his 
 mother s discerning mind, when nineteen years old, 
 foreswore the Sophists, and sided with the unpopular 
 Stoics, much to the chagrin of the father. 
 Seneca let us call him so after this wore the simple 
 white robe of the Stoics, without ornament or jewelry. 
 He drank no wine, and ate no meat. Vegetarianism 
 comes in waves, and it is interesting to see that in an 
 essay on the subject, Seneca plagiarizes every argu 
 ment put forth by Col. Ernest Crosby, even to men 
 tioning a butcher as an "executioner," his goods as 
 "dead corpses," and the customers as "cannibals." 
 Q This kind of talk did not help the family peace, and 
 the father spoke of disowning the son, if he did not 
 cease affronting the Best Society. 
 
 Soon after, the Emperor Tiberius issued an edict ban 
 ishing all "strange sects who fasted on feast days, and 
 otherwise displeased the gods." This was a suggestion 
 for the benefit of the Crosbyites. It is with a feeling of 
 downright disappointment that we find Seneca shortly 
 appearing in an embroidered robe, and making a speech 
 wherein the moderate use of wine is recommended, 
 also the flesh of animals for those who think they need it. 
 Q This, doubtless, is the same speech we, too, would 
 have made had we been there ; but we want our hero 
 to be strong, and defy even an Emperor, if he comes 
 between the man and his right to eat what he wishes, 
 
38 SENECA 
 
 and wear what he listeth, and we blame him for not 
 doing the things we never do. But Seneca was getting 
 on in the world he had become a lawyer, and his 
 Sophist training was proving its worth. Henry Ward 
 Beecher, in reply to a young man who asked him if he 
 advised the study of elocution, said : " Elocution is all 
 right, but you will have to forget it all before you be 
 come an orator." Seneca was shedding his elocution, 
 and losing himself in his work. A successful lawsuit 
 had brought him before the public as a strong advocate. 
 He was able to think on his feet. His voice was low, 
 musical and effective, and the word, " dulcis," was ap 
 plied to him as it was to his brother, Gallic. Possibly 
 there was something in ol Marcus Micawber s peda 
 gogic schemes, after all ! 
 
 In moderating his Stoic philosophy, Seneca gives us 
 the key to his character the man wanted to be gentle 
 and kind, he wished neither to affront his father nor 
 society, so he compromised he would please and 
 placate. Ease and luxury appealed to him, and yet his 
 cool intellect stood off, and reviewing the proceeding, 
 pronounced it base. He succumbed to the strongest at 
 traction, and attempted the feat of riding two horses 
 at once <r dT 
 
 From his twentieth year, Seneca dallied with the epi 
 gram, found solace in a sentence, and got a sweet, 
 subtle joy by taking a thought captive. Lucullus tells 
 us of the fine intoxication of oratory, but neither opium 
 nor oratory imparts a finer thrill than to successfully 
 
SENECA 39 
 
 drive a flock of clauses, and round up an idea, roping it 
 in careless grace, with what my lord Hamlet calls 
 words, words, words. 
 
 The early Christian Fathers spoke of him as " our Sen 
 eca." His writings abound in the purest philosophy 
 often seemingly paraphrasing Saint Paul and every 
 argument for directness of speech, simplicity, manli 
 ness and moderation are put forth. His writings became 
 the rage in Rome at feasts he read his essays on the 
 Ideal Life, just as the disciples of Tolstoy often 
 travel by the gorge road, and give banquets in honor 
 of the man who no longer attends one; or princely-paid 
 preachers glorify the Man who said to His apostles, 
 " Take neither scrip nor purse." 
 
 Seneca was a combination of Delsarte and Emerson. 
 He was as popular as Henry Irving, and as wise as 
 Thomas Brackett Reed. His writings were in demand ; 
 when he spoke in public, crowds hung upon his words, 
 and the families of the great & powerful sent him their 
 sons, hoping he would impart the secret of success. 
 The world takes a man at the estimate he puts upon 
 himself. Seneca knew enough to hold himself high. 
 Honors came his way, and the wealth he acquired is 
 tokened in those five hundred tables, inlaid with ivory, 
 to which at times he invited his friends to feast. As a 
 lawyer, he took his pick of cases, and rarely appeared, 
 excepting on appeal before the Emperor. The poise of 
 his manner, the surety of his argument, the gentle 
 grace of his diction, caused him to be likened to Julius 
 
40 SENECA 
 
 Caesar. Q And this led straight to exile, and finally 
 death. To mediocrity, genius is unforgivable. 
 
 THERE are various statements to the effect that 
 Claudius was a mental defective, a sort of town 
 fool, patronized by the nobles for their sport and 
 jest. We are also told that he was made Emperor by 
 the Praetorian Guards, in a spirit of rollicking bravado. 
 Men too much abused must have some merit, or why 
 should the pack bay so loudly ? Possibly it is true that 
 in the youth of Claudius, his mother used to declare, 
 when she wanted a strong comparison, " he is as big a 
 fool as my son, Claudius." But then the mother of 
 Wellington used exactly the same expression; and 
 Byron s mother had a way of referring to the son who 
 was to rescue her from oblivion, and send her name 
 down the corridors of time, as "that lame brat." 
 Claudius was a brother of the great Germanicus, and 
 was therefore an uncle of Caligula. Caligula was the 
 worst ruler that Rome ever had ; and he was a brother 
 of Agrippina, mother of Nero. This precious pair had a 
 most noble and generous father, and their gentle 
 mother was a fit mate for the great Germanicus these 
 things are here inserted for the edification of folks who 
 take stock in that pleasant fallacy, the Law of Heredity, 
 & who gleefully chase the genealogical anise-seed trail. 
 Q Caligula happily passed out without an heir, & Clau 
 dius, next of kin, put himself in the way of the Praeto- 
 
SENECA 4_i 
 
 rian Guard, and was declared Emperor. Q He was then 
 fifty years old, a grass-widower twice over and on 
 the lookout for a wife. He was neither wise nor great, 
 nor was he very bad ; he was kind after dinner and 
 generous when rightly approached. Canon Farrar 
 likened Claudius to King James I., who gave us our 
 English Bible. His comparison is worth quoting, not 
 alone for the truth it contains, but because it is an in 
 voluntary paraphrase of the faultless literary style of 
 the Roman rhetors. Says Canon Farrar: "Both were 
 learned, and both were eminently unwise. Both were 
 authors, and both were pedants. Both delegated their 
 highest powers to worthless favorites, and both en 
 riched these favorites with such foolish liberality that 
 they remained poor themselves. Both of them, though 
 of naturally good dispositions, were misled by selfish 
 ness into acts of cruelty ; and both of them, though la 
 borious in the discharge of duty, succeeded only in 
 rendering royalty ridiculous. King James kept Sir 
 Walter Raleigh, the brightest intellect of his time, in 
 prison ; and Claudius sent Seneca, the greatest man in 
 his kingdom, into exile." 
 
 New-made kings sweep clean. The impulses of Clau 
 dius were right and just, a truthful statement I here 
 make in pleasant compliment to a brother author. The 
 man was absent-minded, had much faith in others, 
 and moved in the line of least resistance. Like most 
 students and authors, he was decidedly littery. He se 
 cured a divorce from one wife because she cleaned up 
 
42 SENECA 
 
 his room in his absence so that he could never find 
 anything ; and the other wife got a divorce from him 
 because he refused to go out evenings and scintillate in 
 society but this was before he was made Emperor. 
 Gf God knows, people had their troubles then as now ! 
 Q To take this man who loved his slippers and easy 
 chair, and who was happy with a roll of papyrus, and 
 plunge him into a seething pot of politics, not to men 
 tion matrimony, was refined cruelty. 
 The match-makers were busy, and soon Claudius was 
 married to Messalina, the handsomest summer-girl in 
 Rome *T # 
 
 For a short time he bore up bravely, and was filled 
 with the wish to benefit and bless. One of his first acts 
 was to recall Julia and Agrippina from exile, they hav 
 ing been sent away in a fit of jealous anger by their 
 brother, the infamous Caligula. 
 
 Julia was beautiful and intellectual, and she had a high 
 regard for Seneca. Agrippina was beautiful and infa 
 mous, and pretended that she loved Claudius. 
 Both men were undone. Seneca s friendship for Julia, 
 as far as we know, was of a kind that did honor to 
 both, but they made a too conspicuous pair of intel 
 lectuals. The fear and jealousy of Claudius was aroused 
 by his young and beautiful wife, who showed him that 
 Seneca, the courtly, was plotting for the throne, and 
 in this ambition Julia was a party. A charge of undue 
 intimacy with Julia, the beloved niece and ward of the 
 Emperor, was brought against Seneca, and he was 
 
SENECA _ 43 
 
 exiled to Corsica. Imagine Edmund Burke sent to St. 
 Helena, or John Hay to the Dry Tortugas, and you get 
 the idea. 
 
 The sensitive nature of Seneca did not bear up under 
 exile as we would have wished. Unlike Victor Hugo at 
 Guernsey, he was alone, and surrounded by savages. 
 Yet even Victor Hugo lifted up his voice in bitter com 
 plaint. Seneca failed to anticipate that in spite of the 
 barrenness of Corsica, it would some day produce a 
 man who would jostle his Roman Caesar for first place 
 on history s page. 
 
 At Corsica, Seneca produced some of his loftiest and 
 best literature. Exile and imprisonment are such favor 
 able conditions for letters, having done so much for 
 authorship, that the wonder is the expedient has fallen 
 into practical disuse. Banishment gave Seneca an op 
 portunity to put into execution some of the ideas he 
 had so long expressed concerning the simple life, and 
 certain it is that the experience was not without its 
 benefits, and at times the grim humor of it all came to 
 
 Read the history of Greek ostracism, and one can 
 almost imagine that it was devised by the man s 
 friends a sort of heroic treatment prescribed by a 
 great spiritual physician. Personality repels as well as 
 attracts the people grow tired of hearing Aristides 
 called the Just he is exiled. For a few days there is a 
 glad relief; then his friends begin to chant his praises 
 he is missed. People tell of all the noble, generous 
 
44 SENECA 
 
 things he would do if he were only here. Q If he were 
 only here ! 
 
 Petitions are circulated for his return. 
 The law s delay ensues, and this but increases desire. 
 Hate for the man has turned to pity, and pity turns to 
 love, as starch turns to gluten. 
 
 The man comes back, and is greeted with boughs and 
 bays, with love and laurel. His home-coming is that of 
 a conquering hero. If the Supreme Court were to issue 
 an injunction requiring all husbands to separate them 
 selves by at least a hundred miles from their wives, 
 for several months in every year, it would cut down 
 divorces ninety-five per cent, add greatly to domestic 
 peace, render race-suicide impossible, and generally 
 liberate millions of love vibrations that would other 
 wise lie dormant. 
 
 VALERIA MESSALINA lives for us as an ex 
 ample of female depravity, sister in crime to 
 Jezebel, Berenice, Drusilla, Salome and Hero- 
 dias. Damn d by a dower of beauty, with men at her 
 feet whenever she so ordered, her ambition knew no 
 limit. This type of dictatorial womanhood starts out by 
 making conquests of individual men, but the conquests 
 of pretty women are rarely genuine. Women hold no 
 monopoly on duplicity, and there is a deep vein of 
 hypocrisy in men that prompts their playing a part, and 
 letting the woman use them. When the time is ripe, 
 
SENECA 45 
 
 they toss her away as they do any other plaything, as 
 Omar suggests the potter tosses the luckless pots to 
 hell *f *T 
 
 When Julia and Agrippina were recalled, the act was 
 done without consulting Messalina; and we can imag 
 ine her rage when these two women, as beautiful as 
 herself, came back without her permission. Messalina 
 had never found favor in the eyes of Seneca he treated 
 her with patronizing patience, as though she were a 
 spoilt child. 
 
 Now that Julia was back, Messalina hatched the plot 
 that struck them both. Messalina insisted that the 
 wealth of Seneca should be confiscated. Claudius at 
 this rebelled. 
 
 History is replete with instances of great men ruled by 
 their barbers and coachmen. Claudius left the affairs of 
 state to Narcissus, his private secretary; Polybius, his 
 literary helper; and Pallas, his accountant. These men 
 were all of lowly birth, and had all risen in the ranks 
 from menial positions, and one of them at least had 
 been sold as a slave, and afterward purchased his free 
 dom. Then there was Felix, the ex-slave, another pro 
 tege of Claudius, who trembled when Paul of Tarsus 
 told him a little wholesome truth. These men were all 
 immensely rich, and once, when Claudius complained 
 of poverty, a bystander said : " You should go into 
 partnership with a couple of your freedmen, and then 
 your finances would be all right." The fact that Nar 
 cissus, Pallas and Polybius constituted the real govern- 
 
46 SENECA 
 
 ment is nothing against them, any more than it is to 
 the discredit of certain Irish refugees that they manage 
 the municipal machinery of New York City it merely 
 proves the impotence of the men who have allowed the 
 power to slip from their grasp, and ride as passengers 
 when they should be at the throttle. 
 Messalina managed her husband by alternate cajo- 
 lings and threats. He was proud of her saucy beauty, 
 and it was pleasing to an old man s vanity to think that 
 other people thought she loved him. She bore him two 
 sons, by name, Brittanicus and Germanicus. A local 
 wit of the day said, " It was kind of Messalina to pre 
 sent her husband with these boys, otherwise he would 
 never have had any claim on them." 
 But the lines were tightening around Messalina, and 
 she herself was drawing the cords. She had put favor 
 ites in high places, banished enemies, and ordered the 
 execution of certain people she did not like. Narcissus 
 and Pallas gave her her own way, because they knew 
 Claudius must find her out for himself. They let her 
 believe that she was the real power behind the throne. 
 Her ambitions grew she herself would be ruler she 
 gave it out that Claudius was insane. Finally she de 
 cided that the time was right for a coup de grace. 
 Claudius was absent from Rome, and Messalina wed 
 ded at high noon with young Silius, her lover. She was 
 led to believe that the army would back her up, and 
 proclaim her son, Brittanicus, Emperor ; in which case, 
 she herself and Silius would be the actual rulers. The 
 
SENECA 47 
 
 wedding festivities were at their height, when the cry 
 went up that Claudius had returned, and was approach 
 ing to demand vengeance. Narcissus, the wily, took up 
 the shout, and panic-stricken, Messalina fled for safety 
 in one way and Silius in another. 
 
 Narcissus followed the woman, adding to her drunken 
 fright by telling her that Claudius was close behind, 
 and suggested that she kill herself before the wronged 
 man should appear. A dagger was handed her, and she 
 stabbed herself ineffectively in hysteric haste. The 
 kind secretary then, with one plunge of his sword, 
 completed the work so well begun. 
 A truthful account of Messalina s death was told to 
 Claudius while he was at dinner. He finished the meal 
 without saying a word, gave a present to the messen 
 ger, and went about his business, asking no questions, 
 and never again mentioned the matter. 
 The fact is worthy of note that the name of Messalina 
 is never once mentioned by Seneca. He pitied her vile- 
 ness and villainy so much he could not hate her. He 
 saw, with prophetic vision, what her end would be, 
 and when her passing occurred, he was too great and 
 lofty in spirit to manifest satisfaction. 
 
 SCARCELY had the funeral of Messalina occurred, 
 when there was a pretty scramble among the 
 eligible to see who should solace the stricken 
 widower. Among other matrimonial candidates was 
 
48 SENECA 
 
 Agrippina, a beautiful widow, twenty-nine in June, 
 rich in her own right, and with only a small incum- 
 brance in the way of a ten-year-old boy, Nero by name. 
 Q Agrippina was a niece of Claudius, and such mar 
 riages were considered unnatural, but Agrippina had 
 subtly shown that, the deceased Emperor being her 
 brother, she already had a sort of claim on the throne, 
 and her marriage with Claudius would strengthen the 
 state. Then she marshaled her charms past Claudius, 
 in 3. phalanx and back, and so they were married. 
 There was much pomp and ceremony at the wedding, 
 and the high priest pronounced the magic words I 
 trust I use the right expression. 
 
 Very soon after her marriage, Agrippina recalled Seneca 
 from exile. It was the infamous Messalina who had 
 disgraced him and sent him away, and for Agrippina, 
 the sister of Julia, to bring him back, was regarded as a 
 certificate of innocence, and a great diplomatic move 
 for Agrippina. 
 
 When Seneca returned, the whole city went out to 
 meet him. It is not at all likely that Seneca had a sus 
 picion of the true character of Agrippina, any more than 
 Claudius which sort of tends to show the futility of 
 philosophy. 
 
 How could Seneca read her true character when it had 
 not really been formed ? No one knows what he will do 
 until he gets a good chance. It is unkind condition that 
 keeps most of us where we belong. 
 And even while the honeymoon, or should we say 
 
SENECA 49 
 
 the harvest-moon? was at full, Seneca was made the 
 legal guardian and tutor of Nero, the son of the Em 
 press, and became a member of the Royal household. 
 This was done in gratitude, and to make amends, if 
 possible, for the wrong of banishment inflicted upon 
 the man by scandalously linking his name with that of 
 the sister of the woman who was now First Lady of 
 the Land. 
 
 Seneca was then forty-nine years of age he had fifteen 
 years of life yet before him, and was to gain much val 
 uable experience, and get an insight into a side of exis 
 tence he had not yet known. 
 
 Agrippina was born in Cologne, which was called, in 
 her honor, Colonia Agrippina, and now has been short 
 ened to its present form. "Whenever you buy cologne, 
 remember where the word came from. 
 Agrippina, from her very girlhood, had a thirst for ad 
 venture, and her aim was high. When fourteen, she 
 married Domitius, a Roman noble, thirty years her 
 senior. He was as worthless a rogue as ever wore out 
 his physical capacity for sin in middle life, and filled his 
 dying days with crimes that were only mental. He 
 knew himself so well, that when Nero was born he de 
 clared that the issue of such a marriage could only 
 breed a being who would ruin the state a monster 
 with his father s vices and his mother s insatiable am 
 bition jf & 
 
 Agrippina was woman enough to hate this man with 
 an utter detestation, but he was rich, and so she endured 
 
5 SENECA 
 
 him for ten years, and then assisted nature in making 
 him food for worms. 
 
 The intensity of Agrippina s nature might have been 
 used for happy ends if the stream of her life had not 
 been so early dammed and polluted. She loved her child 
 with a clutching, feverish affection, and declared that 
 he would some day rule Rome. This was not really 
 such a far-away dream, when we remember that her 
 brother was then Emperor and childless. Her thought 
 was more for her child than for herself, and her ex 
 pectation was that he would succeed Caligula. The 
 persistency with which she told this ambition for her 
 boy is both beautiful and pathetic. Every mother sees 
 her own life projected in her child, and within certain 
 bounds this is right and well. 
 
 Glimpses of kindness and right intent are shown when 
 Agrippina recalled Seneca, and when she became the 
 mother of the motherless children of Claudius. She 
 publicly adopted these children, and for a time gave 
 them every attention and advantage that was bestowed 
 upon her own son. Gibbon says for one woman to 
 mother another woman s children is a diplomatic card 
 often played, but Gibbon sometimes quibbles. 
 Gradually the fierce desire of Agrippina s heart began 
 to manifest itself. She plotted and arranged that Nero 
 should marry Octavia, the daughter of Claudius. 
 Octavia was seven years older than Nero, but the 
 sooner the marriage could be brought about, the better 
 it would give her a double hold on the throne. To 
 
SENECA 51 
 
 this end suitors for the hand of Octavia were disgraced 
 by false charges, and sent off into exile, and the same 
 fate came to at least three young women who stood in 
 the way. 
 
 But the one real obstacle was Claudius himself he 
 was sixty, and might be so absurd as to live to be 
 eighty. Locusta, a famous professional chemist, was 
 employed, and the deed was done by Agrippina serving 
 the deadly dish herself. The servants carried Claudius 
 off to bed, thinking he was merely drunk, but he was to 
 wake no more. 
 
 Burrus, the blunt and honest old soldier, Captain of 
 the Praetorian Guard, sided with Agrippina; Brittani- 
 cus, the son of Claudius, was kept out of the way, and 
 Nero was proclaimed Emperor. 
 
 Here Seneca seems to have shown his good influence, 
 and sent home a desire in the heart of Agrippina to 
 serve her people with moderation and justice. She had 
 attained her ends her son, a youth of fifteen, was Em 
 peror, and his guardian, the great and gentle Seneca, 
 the man of her own choosing, was the actual ruler. She 
 was sister to one Emperor, wife of another, and now 
 mother of a third surely this was glory enough to 
 satisfy one woman s ambition! 
 
 Then there came to Rome the famed Quinquennium 
 Neronis, when, for five years, peace and plenty smiled. 
 It is a trite saying, that men who cannot manage their 
 own finances can look after those of a nation, but 
 Seneca was a business man who proved his ability to 
 
52 SENECA 
 
 manage his own private affairs and also succeeded in 
 managing the exchequer of a kingdom. During his reign, 
 gladiatorial contests were relieved of their savage bru 
 tality, work was given to many, education became 
 popular, and people said, " The Age of Augustus has re 
 turned." 
 
 But the greatest men are not the greatest teachers. 
 Seneca s policy with his pupil, Nero, was one of con 
 cession jf jf 
 
 A close study of the youth of Nero reveals the same 
 traits that outcrop in one-half the students at Harvard 
 traits ill-becoming to grown-up men, but not at all 
 alarming in youth. Nero was self-willed and occasion 
 ally had tantrums but a tantrum is only a little whirl 
 wind of misdirected energy. A tantrum is life plus it is 
 better far than stagnation, and usually works up into 
 useful life, and sometimes into great art. We have some 
 verses written by Nero in his seventeenth year that 
 show a good Class B sophomoric touch. He danced, 
 played in the theatricals, raced horses, fought dogs, 
 twanged the harp, and exploited various other musical 
 instruments. He was n t nearly as bad as Alcibiades, 
 but his mother lavished on him her maudlin love, and 
 allowed the fallacy to grow in his mind concerning the 
 divinity that doth hedge a king. In fact, when he asked 
 his mother about his real father, she hid the truth that 
 his father was a rogue, perhaps to shield herself, for 
 it is only a very great person who can tell the truth 
 and led him to believe his paternal parent was a god, 
 
SENECA 53 
 
 and his birth miraculous. Now, let such an idea get into 
 the head of the average freshman and what will be the 
 result ? A woman can tell a full-grown man that he is 
 the greatest thing that ever happened, and it does no 
 special harm, for the man knows better than to go out 
 on the street and proclaim it, but you tell a boy of 
 eighteen such pleasing fallacies, and then have fawning 
 courtiers back them up, and at the same time give the 
 youth free access to the strongbox, and it surely would 
 be a miracle if he is not doubly damned, and quickly, 
 too. Agrippina would not allow the blunt old Burrus to 
 discipline her boy, and Seneca s plan was one of con 
 cession he loved peace. He hated to thwart the boy, 
 because he knew that it would arouse the ire of the 
 mother, whose love had run away with her common 
 sense. Love is beautiful, soft, yielding, gentle love, 
 but the common law of England upholds wife-beating 
 as being justifiable and desirable on certain occasions. 
 Q The real trouble was, the dam was out for Agrippina 
 and Nero there was no restraint for either. There was 
 no one to teach them that the liberty of one man ends 
 where the right of another begins. No more frightful 
 condition for any man or woman can ever occur than 
 this : to take away all responsibility. 
 When Socrates put the chesty Alcibiades three points 
 down, and jumped on his stomach with his knees, the 
 youth had a month in bed, and after he got around 
 again he possessed a most wholesome regard for his 
 teacher. If Burrus and Seneca had applied Brockway 
 
54 SENECA 
 
 methods to Agrippina and her saucy son, as they easily 
 might, it would have made Rome howl with delight, 
 and saved the state as well as the individuals. 
 Julius Caesar, like Lincoln, let everybody do as they 
 wished, up to a certain point. But all realized that 
 somewhere behind that dulcet voice and the gentle 
 manner, was a heart of flint and nerves of steel. No 
 woman ever made Julius Caesar dance to syncopated 
 time, nor did a youth of eighteen ever successfully 
 order him to take part in amateur theatricals on penalty. 
 Julius Caesar and Seneca were both scholars, both were 
 gentlemen and gentle men : their mental attitude was 
 much the same, but one had a will of adamant, and the 
 other moved in the line of least resistance. 
 
 GRADUALLY, Nero evolved a petulance and 
 impatience toward his mother and tutor, all of 
 which was quite a natural consequence of his 
 education. Every endeavor to restrain him was met 
 with imprecations and curses. About then would have 
 been a good time to apply heroic treatment, instead of 
 halting fear and worshipful acquiescence. 
 The raw stock for making a Nero is in every school, 
 and given the conditions, a tyrant-culture would be easy 
 to evolve. The endeavor to make Nero wed Octavia, 
 caused a revulsion to occur in his heart toward her and 
 her brother Brittanicus. He feared that these two 
 might combine and wrest from him the throne. 
 
SENECA 55 
 
 Locusta, the specialist, was again sent for and Brit- 
 tanicus was gathered to his fathers. 
 Soon after, Nero fell into a deep infatuation for Poppse 
 Sabina, wife of Otho, the most beautiful woman in Rome. 
 Sabina refused to accept his advances so long as he was 
 tied to his mother s apron strings, I use the exact 
 phrase of Tacitus, so I trust no exceptions will be taken 
 to the expression. Nero came to believe that the tag 
 ging, nagging, mushy love of his mother was standing 
 in the way of his advancement. He had come to know 
 that Agrippina had caused the death of Claudius, and 
 when she accused him of poisoning Brittanicus, he 
 said, " I learned the trick from my dear mother ! " and 
 honors were even. 
 
 He knew the crafty quality of his mother s mind and 
 grew to fear her. And fear and hate are one. To secure 
 Sabina he must sacrifice Agrippina. 
 He would be free. 
 
 To poison her would not do she was an expert in 
 preventatives. 
 
 So Nero, regardless of expense, bargained with Anice- 
 tus, admiral of the fleet, to construct a ship, so that 
 when certain bolts were withdrawn, the craft would 
 sink and tell no tale. This was a bit of daring deviltry 
 never before devised, and by turn, Nero chuckled in 
 glee and had cold sweats of fear as he congratulated 
 himself on his astuteness. 
 
 The boat was built and Agrippina was enticed on 
 board. The night of the excursion was calm, but the 
 
56 SENECA 
 
 conspirators, fearing the chance might never come 
 again, let go the canopy, loaded with lead, which was 
 over the queen. It fell with a crash ; and at the same 
 time the bolts were withdrawn and the waters rushed 
 in & & 
 
 Several of the servants in attendance were killed by 
 the fall of the awning, but Agrippina and Aceronia, a 
 lady of quality, escaped from the debris only slightly 
 hurt. Aceronia, believing the ship was about to sink 
 called for help, saying "I am Agrippina." She erred 
 slightly in her diplomacy, for she was at once struck 
 on the head with an oar and killed. This gave Agrip 
 pina a clue to the situation and she was silent. By a 
 strange perversity, the royal scuttling patent would 
 not work and the boat stubbornly refused to sink. 
 Agrippina got safely ashore and sent word to her son 
 that there had been a terrible accident, but she was 
 safe. The intent of her letter being to let him know 
 that she understood the matter perfectly, and while she 
 could not admire the job, it was so bungling, yet she 
 would forgive him if he would not try it again. 
 In wild consternation, Nero sent for Burrus and 
 Seneca. This was their first knowledge of the affair. 
 They refused to act in either way, but Burrus intimated 
 that Anicetus was the guilty party and should he held 
 responsible. 
 
 " For not completing the task? " said Nero. 
 " Yes," said the blunt old soldier, and retired. 
 Anicetus was notified that the blame of the whole 
 
SENECA 57 
 
 conspiracy was on him. A big crime, well carried out, 
 is its own excuse for being ; but failure, like unto genius, 
 is unforgivable. 
 
 Anicetus was in disgrace, but only temporarily, for he 
 towed the obstinate, tell-tale galley into deep water and 
 sunk her at dead of night. Then with a few faithful 
 followers he surrounded the villa where Agrippina was 
 resting, scattered her guard and confronted her with 
 drawn sword. 
 
 Years before, a soothsayer had told her that her son 
 would be Emperor and that he would kill her. Her 
 answer was, " Let them slay me, if he but reign." 
 Now she saw that death was nigh. She did not try to 
 escape, nor did she plead for mercy, but cried, " Plunge 
 your sword through my womb, for it bore Nero." 
 And Anicetus, with one blow, struck her dead. 
 Nero returned to Naples to mourn his loss. From there 
 he sent forth a lengthy message to the Senate, re 
 counting the accidental shipwreck, and telling how 
 Agrippina had plotted against his life, recounting her 
 crimes in deprecatory, sophistical phrase. The docu 
 ment wound up by telling how she had tried to secure 
 the throne for a paramour, and the truth coming to 
 some o er-zealous friends of the state, they had arisen 
 and taken her life. 
 
 In Rome there was a strong feeling that Nero should 
 not be allowed to return, but this message of explana 
 tion and promise, written by Seneca, downed the 
 opposition. 
 
58 SENECA 
 
 The Senate accepted the report, and Nero, at twenty- 
 two, found himself master of the world. 
 Yet what booted it when he was not master of himself! 
 Q From this time on, the career of Seneca was one of 
 contumely, suffering and disgrace. This was to endure 
 for six years, when kindly death was then to set him 
 free & # 
 
 The mutual, guilty knowledge of a great crime breeds 
 loathing and contempt. History contains many such 
 instances where the subject had knowledge of the 
 sovereign s sins, and the sovereign found no rest until 
 the man who knew was beneath the sod. 
 Seneca knew Nero as only his Maker knew him. 
 After the first spasm of exultation in being allowed to 
 return to Rome, a jealous dread of Seneca came over 
 the guilty monarch. 
 
 Seneca hoped against hope that now Nero s wild oats 
 were sown and the crop destroyed, all would be well. 
 The past should be buried and remembrance of it sunk 
 deep in oblivion. 
 
 But Nero feared Seneca might expose his worthless- 
 ness and the philosopher himself take the reins. In this 
 Nero did not know his man: Seneca s love was literary 
 political power to him was transient and not worth 
 while # *T 
 
 It became known that the apology to the Senate was 
 the work of Seneca, and Nero, who wanted the world 
 to think that all his speeches and addresses were his 
 own, got it firmly fixed in his head he would not be 
 
SENECA 59 
 
 happy until Seneca was out of the way. Sabina said he 
 was no longer a boy, and should not be tagged and dic 
 tated to by his old teacher. 
 
 Seneca, seeing what was coming, offered to give his 
 entire property to the state and retire. Nero would not 
 have it so he feared Seneca would retire only to come 
 back with an army. A cordon of spies was put around 
 Seneca s house he was practically a prisoner. At 
 tempts were made to poison him, but he ate only fruit, 
 and bread made by his wife, Paulina, and drank no 
 water excepting from running streams. 
 Finally a charge of conspiracy was fastened upon him, 
 and Nero ordered him to die by his own hand. His 
 wife was determined to go with him, arid one stroke 
 severed the veins of both. 
 
 The beautiful Sabina realized her hopes she divorced 
 her husband, and married the Emperor of Rome. She 
 died from a sudden kick given her by the booted foot of 
 her liege. 
 
 Three years after the death of Seneca, Nero passed 
 hence by the same route, killing himself to escape the 
 fury of the Praetorian Guard. And so ended the Julian 
 line, none of whom, excepting the first, was a Julian. 
 
 FROM the death of Augustus to the time of Nero 
 there was for Rome a steady tide of disintegra 
 tion. The Emperor was the head of the Church, 
 and he usually encouraged the idea that he was some- 
 
60 SENECA 
 
 thing different from common men that his mission was 
 from On High and that he should be worshiped. Gibbon, 
 making a free translation from Seneca, says, " Religion 
 was regarded by the common people as true, by the 
 philosophers as false, and by the rulers as useful." And 
 St. Augustine, using the same smoothly polished style, 
 says in reference to a Roman Senator, " He worshiped 
 what he blamed, he did what he refuted, he adored 
 that with which he found fault." The sentence is 
 Seneca s, and when he wrote it he doubtless had him 
 self in mind, for in spite of his Stoic philosophy the life 
 of luxury lured him, and although he sang the praises 
 of poverty he charged a goodly sum for so doing, and 
 the nobles who listened to him doubtless found a vi 
 carious atonement by applauding him as he played to 
 the gallery gods of their self-esteem, like rich ladies 
 who go a-slumming, mix in with the poor on an 
 equality, and then hasten home to dress for dinner. 
 
 SENECA was one of the purest and loftiest intel 
 lects the world has ever known. Canon Farrar 
 calls him " A Seeker after God," and has printed 
 parallel passages from St. Paul and Seneca which, for 
 many, seem to show that the men were in communi 
 cation with each other. Every ethical maxim of Chris 
 tianity was expressed by this "noble pagan," and his 
 influence was always directed toward that which he 
 thought was right. His mistakes were all in the line of 
 
SENECA 
 
 61 
 
 infirmities of the will. Voltaire calls him, " The father 
 of all those who wear shovel hats," and in another 
 place refers to him as an " amateur ascetic," but in this 
 the author of the Philosophical Dictionary pays Seneca 
 the indirect compliment of regarding him as a Christian. 
 Renan says, " Seneca shines out like a great white star 
 through a rift of clouds on a night of darkness." The 
 wonder is not that Seneca at times lapsed from his 
 high estate and manifested his Sophist training, but 
 that to the day of his death he saw the truth with un 
 blinking eyes and held the Ideal firmly in his heart. 
 
SO HERE ENDETH THE LITTLE JOURNEY TO THE 
 HOME OF SENECA, WRITTEN BY ELBERT HUBBARD. 
 BORDERS, INITIALS AND ORNAMENTS DESIGNED BY 
 ROYCROFT ARTISTS, PRESSWORK BY LOUIS SCHELL, 
 & THE WHOLE DONE INTO A BOOK BY THE ROYCROFT- 
 ERS AT THEIR SHOP, WHICH IS IN EAST AURORA, IN 
 THE MONTH OF FEBRUARY, IN THE YEAR MCMIV * * 
 

 TO THE HOMES OF GREAT PHILOSOPHERS 
 
 Vol. XIV. MARCH, 1904. No. 3 
 
 By ELBERT HUBBARD 
 
 Single Copies, 25 cents By the Year, $3.00 
 
LITTLE JOURNEYS 
 
 By Rlbert Hubbard FOR 1904 
 
 WILL BE TO THE HOMES -OF 
 
 GREAT PHILOSOPHERS 
 
 THE SUBJECTS AS FOLLOWS 
 
 i Socrates 7 Immanuel Kant 
 
 * Seneca 8 Huguate Comte 
 
 3 Hristotle 9 Voltaire 
 
 4 JVIarcus Hurelius 10 Rerbert Spencer 
 
 5 Spinoza i 1 Schopenhauer 
 
 6 Swedenborg i 2 Renry Choreau 
 
 One booklet a month will be issued as usual, beginning Jan 
 uary First. The LITTLE JOURNEYS for Nineteen Hun 
 dred Four will be strictly de luxe in form and workmanship. 
 The type will be a new font of antique blackface ; the initials, 
 borders and bands designed especially for this work; a 
 frontispiece portrait from the original drawing made at our 
 Shop. The booklets will be stitched by hand with silk ^ 
 
 The price Twenty-five cents each, or $3.00 a year 
 
 Address THE ROYCROFTERS at their Shop, 
 which is at East Aurora, Erie County, New York 
 
 Entered at the postoffice at East Aurora, New York, for transmission as 
 second-class mail matter. Copyright, 1903, by Elbert Hubbard 
 
Little 
 Journeys 
 
 TO THE HOMES OF 
 
 Great 
 Philosophers 
 
 Aristotle 
 
 WRITTEN BY ELBERT 
 HUBBARD AND DONE 
 INTO A BOOK BY THE 
 ROYCROFTERS, AT 
 THEIR SHOP, WHICH 
 IS IN EAST AURORA, 
 NEW YORK, MCMIV 
 
HAPPINESS itself is sufficient excuse. Beautiful things are right 
 and true, so beautiful actions are those pleasing to the gods. 
 Wise men have an inward sense of what is beautiful, and the highest 
 wisdom is to trust this intuition and be guided by it. The answer to 
 the last appeal of what is right lies within a man s own breast. Trust 
 thyself! ETHICS OF ARISTOTLE. 
 
Aristotle 
 
ARISTOTLE 
 
 |HE Sublime Porte recently issued a re 
 quest to the American Bible Society, 
 asking that references to Macedonia be 
 omitted from all Bibles circulated in 
 Turkey or Turkish provinces. The argu 
 ment of his Sublimity is that the Mace 
 donian cry, " Come over and help us ! " 
 puts him and his people in a bad light. 
 He ends his most courteous petition by 
 saying," The land that produced a Philip, 
 an Alexander the Great and an Aristotle, 
 and that to-day has citizens who are the 
 equal of these, needs nothing from our 
 dear brothers, the Americans, but to be 
 let alone." 
 
 As to the statement that Macedonia to 
 day has citizens who are the equals of 
 Philip, Alexander and Aristotle, the 
 proposition, probably, is based on the 
 confession of the citizens themselves, 
 and therefore may be truth. Great men 
 are only great comparatively. It is the 
 stupidity of the many that allows one 
 man to bestride the narrow world like a 
 Colossus. In the time of Alexander and 
 Aristotle there was n t so much compe 
 tition as now, so perhaps what we take 
 to be lack of humor on the part of the 
 Sublime Porte may have a basis in fact. 
 
64 ARISTOTLE 
 
 Q Aristotle was born 384 B. C. at the village of Stagira in 
 the mountains of Macedonia. King Amyntas used to 
 live at Stagira several months in the year and hunt the 
 wild hogs that fed on the acorns which grew in the 
 gorges and valleys. Mountain climbing and hunting 
 was dangerous sport, and it was well to have a surgeon 
 attached to the royal party, so the father of Aristotle 
 served in that capacity. No doubt, though, but the 
 whole outfit was decidedly barbaric, even including the 
 doctor s little son " Aristo," who refused to be left be 
 hind. The child s mother had died years before, and 
 boys without mothers are apt to manage their fathers. 
 And so Aristo was allowed to trot along by his father s 
 side, carrying a formidable bow, which he himself had 
 made, with a quiver of arrows at his back. 
 Those were great times when the King came to Stagira! 
 Q When the King went back to the capital everybody 
 received presents, and the good doctor, by some chance, 
 was treated best of all, and little Aristo came in for the 
 finest bow that ever was, all tipped with silver and 
 eagle feathers. But the bow did not bring good luck, for 
 soon after, the boy s father was caught in an avalanche 
 of sliding stone and crushed to death. 
 Aristo was taken in charge by Proxenus, a near kins 
 man. The lad was so active at climbing, so full of life 
 and energy and good spirits that when the King came 
 the next year to Stagira, he asked for Aristo. "With the 
 King was his son Philip, a lad about the age of Aristo, 
 but not so tall nor so active. The boys became fast 
 
ARISTOTLE 65 
 
 friends, and once when a stranger saw them together he 
 complimented the King on his fine, intelligent boy, and 
 the King had to explain, "the other boy is mine but 
 I wish they both were." 
 
 Aristo knew where the wild boars fed in gulches, 
 where the stunted oaks grew close and thick. Higher 
 up in the mountains there were bears, that occasionally 
 came down and made the wild pigs scamper. You 
 could always tell when the bears were around, for then 
 the little pigs would run out into the open. The bears 
 had a liking for little pigs, and the bears had a liking 
 for the honey in the bee trees, too. Aristo could find 
 the bee trees better than the bears all you had to do 
 was to watch the flight of the bees as they left the 
 clover <r & 
 
 Then there were deer you could see their tracks any 
 time around the mountain marshes where the springs 
 gushed forth and the watercress grew lush. Still higher 
 up the mountains, beyond where bears ever traveled, 
 there were mountain-sheep, and still higher up were 
 goats. The goats were so wild hardly any one but Aristo 
 had ever seen them, but he knew they were there. 
 The King was delighted to have such a lad as compan 
 ion for his son, and insisted that he should go back to 
 the capital with them and become a member of the 
 Court <T <T 
 Would he go ? 
 
 Not he there were other ambitions. He wanted to go 
 to Athens and study at the school of Plato Plato, the 
 
66 ARISTOTLE 
 
 pupil of the great Socrates. Q The King laughed he 
 
 had never heard of Plato. That a youth should refuse 
 
 to become part of the Macedonian Court, preferring the 
 
 company of an unknown schoolmaster, was amusing 
 
 he laughed. 
 
 The next year when the King came back to Stagira, 
 
 Aristo was still there. "And you have n t gone to 
 
 Athens yet ? " said the King. 
 
 " No, but I am going," was the firm reply. 
 
 "We will send him," said the King to Proxenus, 
 
 Aristo s guardian. 
 
 And so we find Aristo, aged seventeen, tall and straight 
 
 and bronzed, starting off for Athens, his worldly goods 
 
 rolled up in a bearskin, tied about with thongs. There 
 
 is a legend to the effect that Philip went with Aristo, 
 
 and that for a time they were together at Plato s 
 
 school. But, anyway, Philip did not remain long. 
 
 Aristo or Aristotle, we had better call him remained 
 
 with Plato just twenty years. 
 
 At Plato s school Aristotle was called by -the boys, 
 
 " the Stagirite," a name that was to last him through life 
 
 and longer. In winter he wore his bearskin, caught 
 
 over one shoulder, for a robe, and his mountain grace 
 
 and native beauty of mind and body must have been a 
 
 joy to Plato from the first. Such a youth could not be 
 
 overlooked. 
 
 To him that hath shall be given. The pupil that wants to 
 
 learn is the teacher s favorite which is just as it should 
 
 not be. Plato proved his humanity by giving his all to 
 
ARISTOTLE 67 
 
 the young mountaineer. Plato was then a little over 
 sixty years of age about the same age that Socrates 
 was when Plato became his pupil. But the years had 
 touched Plato lightly unlike Socrates, he had endured 
 no Thracian winters in bare feet, neither had he lived 
 on cold snacks picked up here and there, as Providence 
 provided. Plato was a bachelor. He still wore the pur 
 ple robe, proud, dignified, yet gentle, and his back was 
 straight as that of a youth. Lowell once said, ""When 
 I hear Plato s name mentioned, I always think of 
 George William Curtis a combination of pride and 
 intellect, a man s strength fused with a woman s gen 
 tleness." *r # 
 
 Plato was an aristocrat. He accepted only such pupils 
 as he invited, or those that were sent by royalty. Like 
 Franz Liszt, he charged no tuition, which plan, by the 
 way, is a good scheme for getting more money than 
 could otherwise be obtained, although no such selfish 
 charge should be brought against either Plato or Liszt. 
 Yet every benefit must be paid for, and whether you 
 use the word fee or honorarium, matters little. I hear 
 there be lecturers who accept invitations to banquets 
 and accept an honorarium mysteriously placed on the 
 mantel, when they would scorn a fee. 
 Plato s garden school, where the pupils reclined under 
 the trees on marble benches, and read and talked, or 
 listened to lectures by the Master, was almost an ideal 
 place. Not the ideal for us, because we believe that the 
 mental and manual must go hand in hand. The world 
 
68 ARISTOTLE 
 
 of intellect should not be separated from the world of 
 work. It was too much to expect that in a time when 
 slavery was everywhere, Plato would see the fallacy 
 of having one set of men to do the thinking, and another 
 do the work. We have n t got far from that yet : only 
 free men can see the whole truth, and a free man is 
 one who lives in a country where there are no slaves. 
 To own slaves is to be one, and to live in a land of 
 slavery is to share in the bondage a partaker in the 
 infamy and profits. 
 
 Plato and Aristotle became fast friends comrades. 
 With thinking men years do not count only those 
 grow old who think by proxy. Plato had no sons after 
 the flesh, and the love of his heart went out to the 
 Stagirite: in him he saw his own life projected. 
 When Aristotle had turned twenty he was acquainted 
 with all the leading thinkers of his time ; he read con 
 stantly, wrote, studied and conversed. The little property 
 his father left had come to him ; the King of Macedon 
 sent him presents ; and he taught various pupils from 
 wealthy families finances were easy. But success 
 did not spoil him. The brightest scholars do not make 
 the greatest success in life, because alma mater usually 
 catches them for teachers. Sometimes this is well, but 
 more often it is not. Plato would not hear of Aristotle 
 leaving him, and so he remained, the chief ornament 
 and practical leader of the school. 
 
 He became rich, owned the largest private library at 
 Athens and was universally regarded as the most 
 
ARISTOTLE 69 
 
 learned man of his time. Q In many ways he had sur 
 passed Plato. He delved into natural history, collected 
 plants, rocks, animals, and made studies of the practi 
 cal workings of economic schemes. He sought to divest 
 the Platonic teaching of its poetry, discarded rhetoric, 
 and tried to get at the simple truth of all subjects. 
 Toward the last of Plato s career this repudiation by 
 Aristotle of poetry, rhetoric, elocution and the polite ac 
 complishments caused a schism to break out in the 
 Garden School. Plato s head was in the clouds at times, 
 Aristotle s was too, but his feet were always on the 
 earth & 4f 
 
 When Plato died, Aristotle was his natural successor 
 as leader of the school, but there was opposition to 
 him, both on account of his sturdy, independent ways 
 and because he was a foreigner. 
 
 He left Athens to become a member of the Court of 
 Hermias, a former pupil, now King of Atarneus. 
 He remained here long enough to marry the niece of 
 his patron, and doubtless saw himself settled for life 
 a kingly crown within his reach should his student- 
 sovereign pass away. 
 
 And the royal friend did pass away, by the dagger s 
 route. As life insurance risks I am told that Kings have 
 to pay double premium. Revolution broke out, and as 
 Aristotle was debating in his mind what course to pur 
 sue, a messenger with soldiers arrived from King Philip 
 of Macedon, offering safe convoy, enclosing transpor 
 tation, and asking that Aristotle come and take charge 
 
TO ARISTOTLE 
 
 of the education of his son, Alexander, aged thirteen. 
 Q Aristotle did not wait to parley : he accepted the in 
 vitation. Horses were saddled, camels packed and that 
 night, before the moon arose, the cavalcade silently 
 moved out into the desert. 
 
 THE offer that had been made twenty-four years 
 before, by Philip s father, was now accepted. 
 Aristotle was forty-two years old, in the prime 
 of his power. Time had tempered his passions, but not 
 subdued his zest in life. He had the curious, receptive, 
 alert and eager mind of a child. His intellect was at its 
 ripest and best. He was a lover of animals, and all out 
 door life appealed to him as it does to a growing boy. 
 He was a daring horseman, and we hear of his riding 
 off into the desert and sleeping on the sands, his horse 
 untethered watching over him. Aristotle was the first 
 man to make a scientific study of the horse, and with the 
 help of Alexander he set up a skeleton, fastening the 
 bones in place, to the mighty astonishment of the na 
 tives, who mistook the feat for an attempt to make a 
 living animal; and when the beast was not at last 
 saddled and bridled there were subdued chuckles of 
 satisfaction among the hoi polloi at the failure of the 
 scheme, and murmurs of " I told you so ! " 
 Eighteen hundred years were to pass before another 
 man was to take up the horse as a serious scientific 
 study ; and this was Leonardo da Vinci, a man in many 
 
ARISTOTLE 71 
 
 ways very much like Aristotle. The distinguishing 
 feature in these men the thing that differentiates them 
 from other men was that great outpouring sympathy 
 with every living creature. Everything they saw was 
 related to themselves it came very close to them 
 they wanted to know more about it. This is essentially 
 the child-mind, and the calamity of life is to lose it. 
 Q Leonardo became interested in Aristotle s essay on 
 the horse, and continued the subject further, dissecting 
 the animal in minutest detail and illustrating his dis 
 coveries by painstaking drawings. His work is so com 
 plete and exhaustive that nobody nowadays has time 
 to more than read the title page. Leonardo s bent was 
 natural science, and his first attempts at drawing were 
 done to illustrate his books. Art was beautiful, ot 
 course it brought in an income, made friends and 
 brought him close to people who saw nothing unless 
 you made a picture of it. He made pictures for recre 
 ation and to amuse folks, and his threat to put the 
 peeping Prior into the " Last Supper," posed as Judas, 
 revealed his contempt for the person to whom a picture 
 was just a picture. The marvel to Leonardo was the 
 mind that could imagine, the hand that could execute, 
 and the soul that could see. 
 
 And the curious part is that Leonardo lives for us 
 through his play and not through his serious work. His 
 science has been superseded, but his art is immortal. 
 Q This expectant mental attitude, this attitude of wor 
 ship, belongs to all great scientists. The man divines 
 
72 ARISTOTLE 
 
 the thing first and then looks for it, just as the Herschels 
 knew where the star ought to be and then patiently 
 waited for it. The Bishop of London said that if Dar 
 win had spent one-half as much time in reading his 
 Bible as in studying earth-worms he would have really 
 benefited the world, and saved his soul alive. To Walt 
 Whitman, a hair on the back of his hand was just as 
 curious and wonderful as the stars in the sky, or God s 
 revelation to man through a printed book. 
 Aristotle loved animals as a boy loves them his house 
 was a regular menagerie of pets, and into this world of 
 life Alexander was very early introduced. We hear of 
 young Alexander breaking the wild horse, Bucephalus, 
 and beyond a doubt Aristotle was seated on the top 
 rail of the paddock when he threw the lariat. 
 Aristotle and his pupil had the first circus of which we 
 know, and they also inaugurated the first Zoological 
 Garden mentioned in history, barring Noah, of course. 
 Of So much was Alexander bound up in this menagerie 
 and in his old teacher as well, that in after life, in all of 
 his travels, he was continually sending back to Aristotle 
 specimens of every sort of bird, beast and fish to be 
 found in the countries through which he traveled. 
 When Philip was laid low by the assassin s thrust it 
 was Aristotle who backed up Alexander, aged twenty 
 but a man in his prompt suppression of the revolu 
 tion. The will that had been used to subdue man-eating 
 stallions and to train wild animals, now came in to re 
 press riot, and the systematic classification of things 
 
ARISTOTLE _ 73 
 
 was a preparation for the forming of an army out of a 
 mob. Aristotle said, "An army is a huge animal with a 
 million claws it must have only one brain and that 
 the commander s." 
 
 Alexander gave credit again and again to Aristotle for 
 those elements in his character that went to make up 
 success : steadiness of purpose, self-reliance, sys 
 tematic effort, mathematical calculation, attention to 
 details, and a broad and generous policy that sees the 
 
 When Aristotle argued with Philip, years before, that 
 horse-breaking should be included in the educational 
 curriculum of all young men, he evidently divined 
 football and was endeavoring to supplant it. 
 
 I THINK history has been a trifle severe on Alex 
 ander. He was elected Captain- General of Greece, 
 and ordered to repel the Persian invasion. And he 
 did the business once for all. War is not all fighting- 
 providence is on the side of the strongest commissariat. 
 Alexander had to train, arm, clothe and feed a million 
 men, and march them long miles across a desert 
 country. The real foe of a man is in his own heart, and 
 the foe of an army is in its own camp disease takes 
 more prisoners than the enemy. Fever sniped more of 
 our boys in blue than did the hostile Filipinos. 
 Alexander s losses were principally from men slain in 
 battle ; from this, I take it that Alexander knew a deal 
 
74 ARISTOTLE 
 
 of sanitary science, and had a knowledge of practical 
 mathematics in order to systematize that mob of rest 
 less, turbulent helots. We hear of Aristotle cautioning 
 him that safety lies in keeping his men busy they 
 must not have too much time to think, otherwise 
 mutiny is to be feared. Still, they must not be over 
 worked, or they will be in no condition to fight when 
 the eventful time occurs. And we are amazed to see 
 this, " Do not let your men drink out of stagnant pools 
 Athenians, city-born, know no better. And when you 
 carry water on the desert marches, it should be first 
 boiled to prevent its getting sour." 
 
 Concerning the Jews, Alexander writes to his teacher 
 and says, "They are apt to be in sullen rebellion 
 against their governors, receiving orders only from 
 their high-priests, and this leads to severe measures, 
 which are construed as persecution;" all of which 
 might have been written yesterday by the Czar in a 
 message to The Hague Convention. 
 Alexander captured the East, and was taken captive by 
 the East. Like the male bee that never lives to tell the 
 tale of its wooing, he succeeded and died. Yet he vital 
 ized all Asia with the seeds of Greek philosophy, turned 
 back the hungry barbaric tide, and made a new map of 
 the Eastern world. He built far more cities than he 
 destroyed. He set Andrew Carnegie an example at 
 Alexandria, such as the world had never up to that 
 time seen. At the entrance to the harbor of the same 
 city he erected a lighthouse, surpassing far the one at 
 
ARISTOTLE 75 
 
 Minot s Ledge, or Race Rock. This structure endured 
 for two centuries, and when at last wind and weather 
 had their way, there was no Hopkinson Smith who 
 could erect another. 
 
 At Thebes, Alexander paid a compliment to letters, by 
 destroying every building in the city excepting the 
 house of the poet, Pindar. At Corinth, when the great, 
 the wise, the noble, came to pay homage, one great 
 man did not appear. In vain did Alexander look for his 
 card among all those handed in at the door Diogenes, 
 the Philosopher, oft quoted by Aristotle, was not to be 
 seen # & 
 
 Alexander went out to hunt him up, and found him 
 sunning himself, propped up against the wall in the 
 Public Square, busy doing nothing. 
 The philosopher did not arise to greet the conqueror 
 he did not even offer a nod of recognition. " I am Alex 
 ander is there not something I can do for you?" 
 modestly asked the descendant of Hercules. " Just stand 
 out from between me and the sun," replied the phi 
 losopher, and went on with his meditations. 
 Alexander enjoyed the reply so much that he said to 
 his companions, and afterward wrote to Aristotle, " If 
 I were not Alexander, I would be Diogenes," and thus 
 did strenuosity pay its tribute to self-sufficiency. 
 
76 ARISTOTLE 
 
 ARISTOTLE might have assumed important af 
 fairs of State, but practical politics were not to 
 his liking. " What Aristotle is in the world of 
 thought I will be in the world of action," said Alexander. 
 Q On all of his journeys Alexander found time to keep 
 in touch with his old teacher at home ; and we find the 
 ruler of Asia voicing that old request, " Send me some 
 thing to read," and again, "1 live alone with my 
 thoughts, amidst a throng of men, but without com 
 panions." jf jf 
 
 Plutarch gives a copy of a letter sent by Alexander 
 wherein Aristotle is chided for publishing his lecture 
 on oratory. "Now all the world will know what for 
 merly belonged to you and I alone," plaintively cries 
 the young man who sighed for more worlds to conquer, 
 and therein shows he was the victim of a fallacy that 
 will never die the idea that truth can be embodied in 
 a book. When will we ever learn that inspired books 
 demand inspired readers ! 
 
 There are no secrets. A book may stimulate thought 
 but it can never impart it. 
 
 Aristotle wrote out the Laws of Oratory. "Alas!" 
 groans Alexander, "everybody will turn orator now." 
 But he was wrong, because Oratory and the Laws of 
 Oratory are totally different things. 
 A Boston man of excellent parts has recently given out 
 the Sixteen Perfective Laws of Oratory, and the Nine 
 teen Steps in Evolution. 
 The real truth is, there are Fifty-seven Varieties of 
 
ARISTOTLE 77 
 
 artistic vagaries, and all are valuable to the man who 
 evolves them they serve him as a scaffolding whereby 
 he builds thought. But woe betide Alexander and all 
 rare-ripe Bostonians who mistake the scaffolding for 
 the edifice. 
 
 There are no Laws of Art. A man evolves first, and 
 builds his laws afterward. The style is the man, and a 
 great man, full of the spirit, will express himself in his 
 own way. 
 
 Bach ignored all the Laws of Harmony made before 
 his day and set down new ones and these marked his 
 limitations, that was all. Beethoven upset all these, 
 and Wagner succeeded by breaking most of Beethoven s 
 rules. And now comes Grieg, and writes harmonious 
 discords that Wagner said were impossible, and still it 
 is music, for by it we are transported on the wings of 
 song and uplifted to the stars. 
 
 The individual soul striving for expression ignores all 
 man-made laws. Truth is that which serves us best in 
 expressing our lives. A rotting log is truth to a bed of 
 violets, while sand is truth to a cactus. But when the 
 violet writes a book on "Expression as I have Found 
 It," making laws for the evolution of beautiful blossoms, 
 it leaves the Century Plant out of its equation, or else 
 swears, i faith, that a cactus is not a flower, and that 
 a Night-blooming Cereus is a disordered thought from 
 a madman s brain. And when the proud and lofty cac 
 tus writes a book it never mentions violets because it 
 has never stooped to seek them. 
 
78 ARISTOTLE 
 
 Art is the blossoming of the Soul. Q We cannot make 
 the plant blossom all we can do is to comply with the 
 conditions of growth. We can supply the sunshine, 
 moisture and aliment, and God does the rest. In teach 
 ing, he only is successful who supplies the conditions 
 of growth that is all there is of the Science of Peda 
 gogics, which is not a science, and if it ever becomes 
 one, it will be the Science of Letting Alone, and not a 
 scheme of interference. Just so long as some of the 
 greatest men are those who have broken through peda 
 gogic fancy and escaped, succeeding by breaking every 
 rule of pedagogy, as Wagner discarded every Law of 
 Harmony, there will be no such thing as a Science of 
 Education. 
 
 Recently 1 read Aristotle s Essays on Rhetoric and 
 Oratory, and I was pained to see how I had been 
 plagiarized by this man who wrote three hundred years 
 before Christ. Aristotle used charts in teaching and in 
 dicated the mean by a straight horizontal line, and the 
 extreme by an upright dash. He says, " From one ex 
 treme the mean looks extreme, and from another ex 
 treme the mean looks small it all depends upon your 
 point of view. Beware of jumping to conclusions, for 
 beside the appearance you must look within and see 
 from what vantage ground you gain the conclusions. 
 All truth is relative, and none can be final to a man six 
 feet high, who stands on the ground, who can walk but 
 forty miles at a stretch, who needs four meals a day 
 and one-third of his time for sleep. A loss of sleep, or 
 
ARISTOTLE 79 
 
 loss of a meal, or a meal too much, will disarrange his 
 point of view, and change his opinions." And thus do 
 we see that a belief in " eternal punishment " is a mere 
 matter of indigestion. 
 
 A certain bishop, we have seen, experienced a regret 
 that Darwin expended so much time on earthworms ; 
 and we might also express regret that Aristotle did not 
 spend more. As long as he confined himself to earth, 
 he was eminently sure and right : he was really the 
 first man who ever used his eyes. But when he quit 
 the earth, and began to speculate about the condition 
 of souls before they are clothed with bodies, or what 
 becomes of them after they discard the body, or the 
 nature of God, he shows that he knew no more than 
 we. That is to say, he knew no more than the barbarians 
 who preceded him. 
 
 He attempted to grasp ideas which Herbert Spencer 
 pigeonholes forever as the Unknowable ; and in some 
 of his endeavors to make plain the unknowable, Aris 
 totle strains language to the breaking point the net 
 bursts & all of his fish go free. Here is an Aristotelian 
 proposition, expressed by Hegel to make lucid a thing 
 nobody comprehends : " Essential being as being that 
 meditates with itself, with itself by the negativity of 
 itself, is relative to itself only as it is relative to another; 
 that is, immediate only as something posited and medi 
 tated." It gives one a slight shock to hear him speak 
 of headache being caused by wind on the brain ; or 
 powdered grasshopper wings being a cure for gout, but 
 
8o ARISTOTLE 
 
 when he calls the heart a pump that forces the blood 
 to the extremities, we see that he anticipates Harvey, 
 although two thousand years of night lie between 
 them & If 
 
 Some of Aristotle reads about like this Geometrical 
 Domestic Equation. Definitions : 
 All boarding-houses are the same boarding-houses. 
 Boarders in the same boarding-house, and on the same 
 flat, are equal to each other. 
 
 A single room is that which hath no parts and no mag 
 nitude # & 
 
 The landlady of the boarding-house is a parallelogram 
 that is, an oblong figure that cannot be described, and 
 is equal to anything. 
 
 A wrangle is the disinclination to each other of two 
 boarders that meet together, but are not on the same 
 floor & & 
 
 All the other rooms being taken, a single room is a 
 double room. 
 
 Postulates and Propositions : 
 A pie may be produced any number of times. 
 The landlady may be reduced to her lowest terms by 
 a series of propositions. 
 
 A bee-line is the shortest distance between the Pha- 
 lansterie and By Allen s. 
 
 The clothes of a boarding-house bed stretched both 
 ways will not meet. 
 
 Any two meals at a boarding-house are together less 
 than one meal at the Phalansterie. 
 
ARISTOTLE 81 
 
 On the same bill and on the same side of it there 
 should not be two charges for the same thing. 
 If there be two boarders on the same floor, and the 
 amount of the side of the one be equal to the amount 
 of the side of the other, and the wrangle between the 
 one boarder and the landlady be equal to the wrangle 
 between the landlady and the other boarder, then shall 
 the weekly bills of the two boarders be equal. For, if 
 not, let one bill be the greater, then the other bill is less 
 than it might have been, which is absurb. Therefore 
 the bills are equal. Quod erat demonstrandum. 
 
 THE business of the old philosophers was to phi 
 losophize. To philosophize as a business, is to 
 miss the highest philosophy. To do a certain 
 amount of useful work every day, and not trouble 
 about either the past or future, is the highest wisdom. 
 The man who drags the past behind him, and dives 
 into the future, spreads the present out thin. Therein 
 lies the bane of most religions. A man goes out into the 
 woods to study the birds : he walks and walks and 
 walks and sees no birds. But just let him sit down on a 
 log and wait, and lo ! the branches are full of song. 
 Those who pursue Culture never catch up with her. 
 Culture takes alarm at pursuit and avoids the stealthy 
 pounce. Culture is a woman, and a certain amount of 
 indifference wins her. Ardent wooing will not secure 
 either wisdom or a woman excepting in the case 
 
82 ARISTOTLE 
 
 where a woman marries a man to get rid of him, and 
 then he really does not get the woman he only secures 
 her husk. And the husks of culture are pedantry "and 
 sciolism. The highest philosophy of the future will 
 consist in doing each day that which is most useful. 
 Talking about it will be quite incidental and secondary. 
 
 AFTER Alexander had completed his little task 
 of conquering the world, it was his intention to 
 sit down and improve his mind. He was going 
 back to Greece and complete the work Pericles had so 
 well begun. To this end Aristotle had left Macedonia 
 and established his Peripatetic school at Athens. Plato 
 was exclusive, and taught in the Garden with its high 
 walls. Aristotle taught in the peripatos or porch of the 
 Lyceum, and his classes were for all who wished to 
 attend. Socrates was really the first peripatetic phi 
 losopher, but he was a roustabout. Nothing sanctifies 
 like death and now Socrates had become respectable, 
 and his methods were to be made legal and legitimate. 
 Q Socrates discovered the principal of human liberty ; 
 he taught the rights of the individual, and as these 
 threatened to interfere with the state, the politicians 
 got alarmed and put him to death. Plato, much more 
 cautious, wrote his " Republic" wherein everything is 
 subordinated for the good of the state, and the individ 
 ual is but a cog in a most perfectly lubricated machine. 
 Aristotle saw that Socrates was nearer right than Plato 
 
ARISTOTLE 83 
 
 sin is the expression of individuality and is not 
 wholly bad the state is made up of individuals, and if 
 you suppress the thinking power of the individual, you 
 will get a weak and effeminate body politic ; there will 
 be none to govern. The whole fabric will break down 
 of its own weight. A man must have the privilege of 
 making a fool of himself within proper bounds, of 
 course. To that end learning must be for all, and liberty 
 to both listen and teach should be the privilege of every 
 man # & 
 
 This is a problem that Boston has before it to-day: 
 shall free speech be allowed on the Common ? William 
 Morris tried it in Trafalgar Square, to his sorrow ; but 
 in Hyde Park, if you think you have a message, London 
 will let you give it. But this is not considered good 
 form, and the "best Society" listen to no speeches in 
 the park. However there are signs that Aristotle s out 
 door school may come back. Phillips Brooks tried 
 outdoor preaching, and if his health had not failed, he 
 might have popularized it. It only wants a man who is 
 big enough to inaugurate it. 
 
 Aristotle had various helpers, and arranged to give his 
 lectures and conferences daily in certain porches or 
 promenades. These lectures covered the whole range 
 of human thought logic, rhetoric, oratory, physics, 
 ethics, politics, esthetics, and physical culture. These 
 outdoor talks were called exoteric, and there gradually 
 grew up esoteric lessons, which were for the rich or 
 luxurious and the dainty. And there being money in 
 
84 ARISTOTLE 
 
 the esoteric lessons, these gradually took the place of 
 the exoteric, and so we got the genesis of our modern 
 private school or college, where we send our children 
 to be taught great things by great men for a considera 
 tion <r *r 
 
 Will the exoteric, peripatetic school come back ? 
 I think so. 
 
 I believe that university education will soon be free to 
 every boy and girl in America, and this without going 
 far from home. Esoteric education is always more or 
 less of a sham. Our public school system is purely exo 
 teric, only we stop too soon. We also give our teachers 
 too much work and too little pay. Stop building war 
 ships, and use the money to double the teachers 
 salaries, making the profession respectable, raise the 
 standard of efficiency, and the free university with the 
 old Greek Lyceum will be here. 
 
 America must do this the Old World can t. We have 
 the money, and we have the men and women, all that 
 is needed is the desire, and this is fast awakening. 
 
 WHEN Alexander died, of acute success, aged 
 thirty-two, Aristotle s sustaining prop was 
 gone. The Athenians never thought much of 
 the Macedonians not much more than St. Paul did, 
 he having tried to convert both and failed. 
 Athens was jealous of the power of Alexander that 
 a provincial should thus rule the Mother-Country was 
 
ARISTOTLE 85 
 
 unforgivable. It was as if a Canadian should make him 
 self King of England ! 
 
 Everybody knew that Aristotle had been the tutor of 
 Alexander, and that they were close friends. And that 
 a Macedonian should be the chief school-teacher in 
 Athens was an affront. The very greatness of the man 
 was his offense Athens had none to match him, and 
 the world has never since matched him, either. How 
 to get rid of the Macedonian philosopher was the 
 question. 
 
 And so our old friend, heresy, comes in again a poem 
 was found, written by Aristotle many years before, on 
 the death of his friend, King Hermias, wherein Apollo 
 was disrespectfully mentioned. It was the old charge 
 against Socrates come back the hemlock was brewing. 
 But life was sweet to Aristotle, he chose discretion to 
 valor, and fled to his country home at Chalcis in 
 Eubcea *T jT 
 
 The humiliation of being driven from his work, and 
 the sudden change from active life to exile undermined 
 his strength, and he died in a year, aged sixty-two. 
 In morals the world has added nothing new to the 
 philosophy of Aristotle: gentleness, consideration, 
 moderation, mutual helpfulness and the principle that 
 one man s privileges end where another man s rights 
 begin these make up the sum. And on them all author 
 ities agree, and have for twenty-five hundred years. 
 Q The family relations of Aristotle were most ex 
 emplary. The unseemly wrangles of Philip and his wife 
 
86 
 
 ARISTOTLE 
 
 were never repeated in the home of Aristotle. Yet we 
 will have to offer this fact in the interests of stirpicul- 
 ture : the inconstant Philip and the termagant Olympias 
 brought into the world Alexander; whereas the sons of 
 Aristotle lived their day and died, without making a 
 ripple on the surface of history. 
 
 As in the scientific study of the horse, no progress was 
 made from the time of Aristotle to that of Leonardo, so 
 Hegel says there was no advancement in philosophy 
 from the time of Aristotle to that of Spinoza. 
 Eusebius called Aristotle Nature s Private Secretary. 
 Dante spoke of him as "The Master of those who 
 know." Sir William Hamilton said, " In the range of 
 his powers and perceptions, only Leonardo can be 
 compared with him." 
 
SO HERE ENDETH THE LITTLE JOURNEY TO THE 
 HOME OF ARISTOTLE, WRITTEN BY ELBERT HUBBARD. 
 BORDERS, INITIALS AND ORNAMENTS DESIGNED BY 
 ROYCROFT ARTISTS, PRESSWORK BY LOUIS SCHELL, 
 & THE WHOLE DONE INTO A BOOK BY THE ROYCROFT- 
 ERS AT THEIR SHOP, WHICH IS IN EAST AURORA, IN 
 THE MONTH OF MARCH, IN THE YEAR MCMIV 41 4 4 
 
NO MEN ARE GREATER 
 sticklers for the arbitrary dominion of genius 
 and talent than your artists. The great painter 
 is not content with being sought after and admired 
 because his hands can do more than ordinary hands, 
 which they truly can, but he wants to be fed as if his 
 stomach needed more food than ordinary stomachs, 
 which it does not. A day s work is a day s work, neither 
 more nor less, and the man who does it needs a day s 
 sustenance, a night s repose, and due leisure, whether 
 he be painter or ploughman. But the rascal of a painter, 
 poet, novelist, or other voluptuary of labor, is not con 
 tent with his advantage in popular esteem over the plough 
 man ; he also wants an advantage in money, as if there 
 were more hours in a day spent in a studio or library 
 than in the field; or as if he needed more food to enable 
 him to do his work than the ploughman to enable him to 
 do his. He talks of the higher quality of his work, as if 
 the higher quality of it was his own making as if it gave 
 him a right to work less for his neighbor than his neigh 
 bor works for him as if the ploughman could not do 
 better without him than he without the ploughman as if 
 the value of the most celebrated pictures has not been 
 questioned more than that of any straight furrow in the 
 arable world as if it did not take an apprenticeship of 
 as many years to train the hand and eye of a mason or 
 blacksmith as of an artist as if, in short, the fellow were 
 a god, as canting brain worshippers have for years past 
 been assuring him he is. Artists are the high priests of 
 the modern Moloch. Bernard Shaw. 
 
Vfttlr 
 
 TO THE HOMES OF GREAT PHILOSOPHERS 
 
 MARCUS AURELIUS 
 
 Vol. XIV. APRIL, 1904. No. 4 
 
 By ELBERT HUBBARD 
 
 Single Copies, 25 cents By the Year, $3.00 
 
LITTLE JOURNEYS 
 
 By Elbert Hubbard FOR 1904 
 
 WILL BE TO THE HOMES OF 
 
 GREAT PHILOSOPHERS 
 
 THE SUBJECTS AS FOLLOWS 
 
 i Socrates 
 
 z Seneca 
 
 3 Hristotle 
 
 4 JVIarcue Hurelius 
 
 5 Spinoza 
 
 6 Swedenborg 
 
 7 Imtnanuel Kant 
 8 Huguste Comte 
 9 Voltaire 
 10 Berbert Spencer 
 11 Schopenhauer 
 12 Renry Choreau 
 
 One booklet a month will be issued as usual, beginning Jan 
 uary First. The LITTLE JOURNEYS for Nineteen Hun 
 dred Four will be strictly de luxe in form and workmanship. 
 The type will be a new font of antique blackface ; the initials, 
 borders and bands designed especially for this work; a 
 frontispiece portrait from the original drawing made at our 
 Shop. The booklets will be stitched by hand with silk ^> 
 
 The price Twenty-five cents each, or $3.00 a year 
 
 Address THE ROYCROFTERS at their Shop, 
 which is at East Aurora, Erie County, New York 
 
 Entered at the postoffice at East Aurora, Nevy York, for transmission as 
 second-class mail matter. Copyright, 1903, by Elbert Hubbard 
 
Little 
 Journeys 
 
 TO THE HOMES OK 
 
 Great 
 Philosophers 
 
 Aurelius 
 
 WRITTEN BY ELBERT 
 HUBBARD AND DONE 
 INTO A BOOK BY THE 
 ROYCROFTERS, AT 
 THEIR SHOP, WHICH 
 IS IN EAST AURORA, 
 NEW YORK, MCMIV 
 
WE are made for co-operation, like feet, like hands, like eyelids, 
 like the rows of the upper and lower teeth. To act against one 
 another then is contrary to nature, and it is acting against one another 
 to be vexed and turn away. THE MEDITATIONS. 
 
/ / 1 
 
 Marcus Aurelius 
 
MARCUS AURELIUS 
 
 |NNIUS VERUS was one of the great 
 men of Rome. He had been a soldier, 
 governor of provinces, judge, senator, 
 and consul. Sixty years had passed over 
 his head and whitened his hair, but the 
 lines of care that were on his fine face 
 ten years before had now given way to 
 a cherubic double-chin, and his com 
 plexion was ruddy as a baby s. The en 
 tire atmosphere of the man was one of 
 gentleness, repose and kindly good-will. 
 Annius Verus was grateful to the gods, 
 for the years had brought him much 
 good fortune, and better still, knowledge. 
 " Being old I shall know * * * the last 
 of life for which the first was made! " 
 Q Religion is n t a thing outside of a 
 man, taught by priests out of a book. 
 Religion is in the heart of man and its 
 chief quality is resignation and a grate 
 ful spirit. Annius Verus was religious 
 in the best sense, and his life was peace 
 ful and happy. 
 
 And surely Annius Verus should have 
 been content he -was a Roman Consul, 
 rich, powerful, honored by the wisest 
 and best men in Rome, who considered 
 it a privilege to come and dine at his 
 table. His villa was on Mount Ccelius, 
 
88 MARCUS AURELIUS 
 
 a suburb of Rome. The house was surrounded by a big 
 stone wall enclosing a tract of about ten acres where 
 grew citron, orange and fig trees, and giant cedars of 
 Lebanon lifted their branches to the clouds. 
 At least it seemed to little Marcus, grandson of the 
 Consul, as if they reached the clouds. There was a 
 long ladder running up one of these big cedar trees to 
 a platform or " crow s-nest " nearly a hundred feet from 
 the ground. No boy was allowed to climb up there 
 until he was twelve years old, and when Marcus was 
 ten, time got stuck, he thought, and refused to budge. 
 But this was only little Marcus idea, for he finally got 
 to be twelve years old, and then he climbed the long 
 ladder to the lookout in the tree and looked down on 
 the Eternal City that lay below in the valley and 
 stretched away over the seven hills. Often the boy 
 would take a book and climb up there to read; and 
 when the good grandfather missed him, he knew where 
 to look, and standing under the tree the old man would 
 call, " Come down, Marcus, come down and kiss your 
 old grandfather it is lonesome down here ! Come down 
 and read to your grandfather who loves his little 
 Marcus ! " 
 
 Such an appeal as this was irresistible and the boy, 
 slight, slim and agile, would clamber over the side of 
 the crow s-nest and down the ladder to the outstretched 
 arms ,y #* 
 
 The boy s father had died when he was only three 
 months old, and the grandfather had adopted the child 
 
MARCUS AURELIUS 89 
 
 as his heir, and brought Lucilla, the widowed mother, 
 and her baby to live in his house. 
 
 Years before, the Consul s wife had passed away, and 
 Faustina, his daughter, became the lady of the house. 
 Lucilla and Faustina did n t get along very well to 
 gether no house is big enough for two families, some 
 man has said. Lucilla was gentle, gracious, spiritual, 
 modest and refined; Faustina was beautiful and not 
 without intellect, but she was proud, domineering and 
 fond of admiration. But be it said to the credit of the 
 good old Consul, he was able to suffuse the whole 
 place with love, and even if Faustina had a tantrum 
 now and then, it did not last long. 
 
 There were always visitors in the household soldiers 
 home on furloughs, governors on vacations, lawyers 
 who came to consult the wise and judicial Verus. 
 One visitor of note -was a man by the name of Aurelius 
 Antoninus. He was about forty years old as Marcus first 
 remembered him tall and straight with a full, dark 
 beard and short, curly hair touched with gray. He was 
 a quiet, self-contained man, and at first little Marcus 
 was a bit afraid of him. Aurelius Antoninus had been a 
 soldier, but he showed such a studious mind, and was 
 so intent on doing the right thing that he was made an 
 under-secretary, then private secretary to the Emperor, 
 and finally he had been sent away to govern a rebel 
 lious province, and put down mutiny by wise diplomacy 
 instead of by force of arms. 
 Aurelius Antoninus was inclined towards the Stoics, 
 
90 MARCUS AURELIUS 
 
 although he did n t talk much about it. He usually ate 
 but two meals a day, worked with the servants and 
 wrote this in his diary, " Men are made for each other: 
 even the inferior for the superior, and these for the 
 sake of one another." 
 
 This philosophy of the Stoics rather appealed to the 
 widow Lucilla, also, and she read Zeno with Aurelius 
 Antoninus. Verus did not object to it he had been a 
 soldier and knew the advantages of doing without 
 things and of being able to make the things you needed, 
 and of living simply and being plain and direct in all 
 your acts and speech. But Faustina laughed at it all 
 to her it was preposterous that one should wear plain 
 clothing and no jewelry when he could buy the costliest 
 and best ; and why one should eschew wine and meat 
 and live on brown bread and fruit and cold water, when 
 he could just as well have spiced and costly dishes 
 all this was clear beyond her. Various fetes and ban 
 quets were given by Faustina, to which the young 
 nobles were invited. She was a beautiful woman and 
 never for a moment forgot it, and by some mistake or 
 accident she got herself betrothed to three men at the 
 same time. Two of these fought a duel and one was 
 killed. The third man looked on and hoped both would 
 be killed, for then he could have the woman. Faustina 
 got this third man to challenge the survivor, and then 
 by one of those strange somersaults of fate the unex 
 pected occurred. 
 Faustina and Aurelius Antoninus were married. 
 
MARCUS AURELIUS 91 
 
 It was a most queer mismating, for the man was plain, 
 sincere and honorable, and she was almost everything 
 else. Yet she had wit and she had beauty, and Aurelius 
 had been living in the desert so long he imagined that 
 all women were gentle and good. The Consul was very 
 glad to unite his house with so fine and excellent a 
 man as Aurelius ; Lucilla cried for two days and more 
 and little Marcus cried because his mother did, and 
 neither cried because Faustina had gone away. 
 But grief is transient. 
 
 In a little over a year Antoninus and Faustina came 
 back to Rome, and brought with them a little girl baby, 
 Faustina Second. Marcus was very much interested in 
 this baby, and made great plans about how they would 
 play together when she got older. 
 
 Among other visitors at the house of the old Consul 
 often came the Emperor himself. Hadrian and Verus 
 were Spaniards and had been soldiers together, and 
 now Hadrian often liked to get away from the cares of 
 state, and in the evening hide himself from the office- 
 seekers and flattering parasites in the quiet villa on 
 Mount Coelius he liked it here even better than at his 
 own wonderful gardens at Tivoli. And little Marcus 
 was n t afraid of him, either. Marcus would sit on the 
 Emperor s knee and listen to tales about hunting wild 
 boars and bears, or men as wild. Then they would play 
 tag or I-spy among the bushes and trees; and once 
 Marcus dared the Emperor to climb the long ladder to 
 the look-out in the big cedar. Hadrian accepted the 
 
92 MARCUS AURELIUS 
 
 challenge and climbed to the crow s-nest and cut his 
 initials in the trunk of the tree. 
 
 Instead of calling the boy Marcus Verus, the Emperor 
 gave him the name " Verissimus," which means "the 
 open-eyed truthful one," and this name stuck to Marcus 
 for life. 
 
 Between Antoninus and Marcus there grew up a very 
 close friendship. Antoninus could scale the ladder up 
 the tall cedar, three rungs at a time, and come down 
 hand over hand without putting his foot on a rest. 
 He and Marcus built another crow s-nest thirty feet 
 above the first. They drew up the lumber by ropes, 
 and Antoninus being sinewy and strong climbed up 
 first, and with thongs and nails they fixed the boards 
 in place, and made a rope ladder such as sailors make, 
 that they could pull up after them so no one could reach 
 them. When the kind old Emperor came to the villa 
 they showed him what they had done. He said he 
 would not try to climb up now as he had a touch of 
 rheumatism. But a light was fixed in the upper lookout, 
 drawn up by a cord, so they could signal to the Em 
 peror down at the palace. 
 
 Then Antoninus taught Marcus to ride horseback and 
 pick up a spear off the ground, with his horse at a gallop. 
 This was great sport for the Consul and the Emperor 
 who looked on, but they did not try it then, but said 
 they would later on "when they were feeling just right. 
 Q And beside all this Aurelius Antoninus taught Marcus 
 to read from Epictetus, and told him how this hunch- 
 
MARCUS AURELIUS 93 
 
 back slave, Epictetus, who -was owned by a man who 
 had been a slave himself, was one of the sweetest, 
 gentlest souls who had ever lived. Together they read 
 the Stoic-slave philosopher and made notes from him. 
 And so impressed was Marcus, that boy though he was, 
 he adopted the simple robe of the Stoics, slept on a 
 plank, and made his life and language plain, truthful 
 and direct. 
 
 This was all rather amusing to those near him, to all 
 except Antoninus and the boy s mother. The others 
 said, " Leave him alone and he 11 get over it." 
 Faustina was still fond of admiration the simple, 
 studious ways of her husband were not to her liking. 
 He was twenty years her senior, and she demanded 
 gaiety as her right. Her delight was to tread the bor 
 der line of folly, and see how close she could come to 
 the brink and not step off. Julius Caesar s wife was put 
 away on suspicion, but Faustina was worse than that ! 
 She would go down to the city to masquerades, leaving 
 her little girl at home, and be gone for three days. 
 When she returned Aurelius Antoninus spoke no word 
 of anger nor reproof. Her father said to her, " Beware ! 
 your husband s patience has a limit if he divorces you, 
 I shall not blame him ; and even if he should kill you, 
 Roman law will not punish him ! " 
 
 But long years after, Marcus, in looking back on those 
 days, wrote, "His patience knew no limit; he treated 
 her as a perverse child, and he once said to me, I pity 
 and love her, I will not put her away this were selfish. 
 
94 MARCUS AURELIUS 
 
 How can her follies injure me ? We are what we are, 
 and no one can harm us but ourselves. The mistakes 
 of those near us afford us an opportunity for self-con 
 trol we will not imitate their errors, but rather strive 
 to avoid them. In this way what might be a great hu 
 miliation has its benefits." 
 
 Let no one imagine, however, that the tolerance of 
 Antoninus was the soft acquiescence of weakness. After 
 his death Marcus wrote, "Whatsoever excellent thing 
 he had planned to do, he carried out with a persistency 
 that nothing could divert. If he punished men, it was 
 by allowing them to be led by their own folly his fore 
 sight, wisdom and calm deliberation were beyond those 
 of any man I ever knew." 
 
 The studious, direct and manly ways of Marcus were 
 not cast aside when he put on the toga virilis, as 
 Faustina had predicted. In spite of the difference in 
 their ages, Antoninus and Marcus mutually sustained 
 each other. 
 
 Little Faustina was much more like her father than 
 her mother, and very early showed her preference for 
 her father s society. Marcus was her playmate and 
 taught her to ride a pony astride, just as her father had 
 taught him. The three would often ride over to the 
 village of Lorium, twelve miles from Rome, where 
 Antoninus had a summer villa. At Lanuvium, near at 
 hand, the Emperor spent a part of his time, and he 
 would occasionally join the party and listen to Marcus 
 recite from Cicero and Caesar. 
 
MARCUS AURELIUS 95 
 
 When Marcus was sixteen, Hadrian appointed him 
 prefect of festivities in Rome, to take the place of the 
 regular officer, a man of years, who was out of the city. 
 So well did Marcus fill the place and make up his re 
 port, that when they again met, the old Emperor kissed 
 his cheek, calling him, " My brave Verissimus," and 
 said, " If I had a son, I would want him just like you." 
 Q Not long after this the Emperor was taken violently 
 ill. He called his counselors about his bedside and di 
 rected that Aurelius Antoninus should be his successor, 
 and that further, Antoninus should adopt Marcus Verus, 
 so that Marcus should succeed Aurelius Antoninus. 
 Q Hadrian loved Marcus for his own sake, and he loved 
 him too for the sake of the grandfather, his old soldier 
 comrade, Annius Verus ; and beside that he was intent 
 on preserving the Spanish strain. 
 
 In a short time Hadrian passed away, and Aurelius 
 Antoninus was crowned Emperor of Rome, and Marcus 
 Verus, aged seventeen, slim, slender and studious, took 
 the name, Marcus Aurelius. 
 
 THE new reign did not begin under very favorable 
 auspices. There was a prejudice against the 
 Spanish blood, and Hadrian had alienated some 
 of the aristocrats by measures they considered too 
 democratic. 
 
 Aurelius Antoninus knew of these prejudices toward 
 his predecessor and he boldly met them by carrying the 
 
96 MARCUS AURELIUS 
 
 ashes of Hadrian to the Senate, demanding that the 
 dead Emperor should be enrolled among the gods. So 
 earnest and convincing was his eulogy of the great man 
 gone, that a vote was taken and the resolution passed 
 without a dissenting voice. This gives us a slight clue 
 to the genesis of the gods, and also reveals to us the 
 the character of Antoninus. He so impressed the Senate 
 that this honorable body thought best to waive all 
 matters of difference and in pretty compliment they 
 voted to bestow on the new Emperor the degree of 
 "Pius." Antoninus Pius was a man born to rule in 
 little things, lenient, but firm at the right time. Faustina 
 still had her little social dissipations, but as she was 
 not allowed to mix in affairs of state, her pink person 
 was not a political factor. 
 
 Marcus Aurelius was only seventeen years old: his 
 close studies had robbed him of a bit of the robust 
 health a youth should have. But horseback riding and 
 daily outdoor games finally got him back into good 
 condition. He was the secretary and companion of the 
 Emperor wherever he went. 
 
 Great responsibilities confronted these two strong men. 
 In point of intellect and aspiration they were far be 
 yond the people they governed. So far, indeed, that they 
 were almost isolated. There was a multitude of slaves 
 and consequently there was a feeling everywhere that 
 useful work was degrading. The tendency of the slave 
 owner is always toward profligacy and conspicuous 
 waste. To do away with slavery was out of the ques- 
 
MARCUS AURELIUS 97 
 
 tion that was a matter of time and education the 
 ruler can never afford to get much in advance of his 
 people. The court was infected with parasites in the 
 way of informers and busy-bodies who knew no way 
 to thrive excepting through intrigue. Superstitions 
 were taught by hypocritical priests in order to make 
 the people pay tithes ; and attached to the state religion 
 were sooth-sayers, fortune-tellers, astrologers, gam 
 blers & many pretenders who waxed fat by ministering 
 to ignorance and depravity. These were the cheerful 
 parasites mentioned as "money-changers" a hundred 
 years before, that infested the entrance to every temple. 
 Q Many long consultations did the Emperor and his 
 adopted son have concerning the best policy to pursue. 
 They could have issued an edict and swept the wrongs 
 out of existence, but they knew that folly sprouts from 
 a disordered brain and so they did not treat a symptom : 
 the disease was ignorance, the symptom, superstition. 
 For themselves they kept an esoteric doctrine, and for 
 the many they did what they could. 
 Twenty-three years of probation lay before Marcus 
 Aurelius years of study, work, and patient endeavor. 
 He shared in all the honors of the Emperor and bore 
 his part of the burden as well. Never did he thirst for 
 more power the responsibilities of the situation sad 
 dened him there was so much to be done and he could 
 do so little. "Well does Dean Farrar call him " a seeker 
 after God." 
 The office of young Marcus Aurelius at first was that 
 
98 MARCUS AURELIUS 
 
 of Quaestor, which literally means a messenger, but 
 the word with the Romans meant more an emissary 
 or an ambassador. When Marcus was eighteen he read 
 to the Senate all speeches and messages from the Em 
 peror ; and in a few years more he wrote the messages 
 as well as delivered them. And all the time his educa 
 tion was being carried along by competent instructors. 
 Q One of these teachers, Pronto, has come down to us, 
 his portrait well etched on history s tablets, because 
 he saved all the letters written him by Marcus Aure- 
 lius ; and his grandchildren published them in order to 
 show the excellence of true scientific teaching. That 
 old Pronto was a dear old dear, these letters do fully 
 attest. When Marcus went away on a little journey, 
 even to Lorium, he wrote a letter to Pronto telling 
 about the trip the sheep by the wayside, the dogs 
 that herded them, the shower they saw coming across 
 the Campagna, and incidentally a little freshman philos 
 ophy mixed in, for Pronto had cautioned his pupil to 
 always write out a great thought when it came, for fear 
 he would never have another. Marcus was a sprightly 
 letter writer, and must have been a quick observer, and 
 Fronto s gentle claims that he made the man, are 
 worthy of consideration. As a literary exercise the daily 
 theme, prompted by love, can never be improved upon. 
 The way to learn to write is to write. And Pronto, who 
 resorted to many little tricks, in order to get his pupil 
 to express himself, was a teacher whose name should 
 be written high. The correspondence school has many 
 
MARCUS AURELIUS 99 
 
 advantages Pronto purposely sent his pupil away or 
 absented himself, that the carefully formulated or 
 written thought might take the place of the free and 
 easy conversation. In one letter Marcus ends, "The 
 day was perfect but for one thing you were not here. 
 But then if you were here, I would not now have the 
 pleasure of writing to you, so thus is your philosophy 
 proven : that all good is equalized, & love grows through 
 separation! " This sounds a bit preachy, but is valuable, 
 as it reveals the man to whom it is written : the person 
 to whom we write dictates the message. 
 Fronto s habit of giving a problem to work out was 
 quite as good a teaching plan as anything we have to 
 offer now. Thus, "An ambassador of Rome visiting an 
 outlying province attended a gladiatorial contest. And 
 one of the fighters being indisposed, the ambassador 
 replied to a taunt by putting on a coat of mail and go 
 ing into the ring to kill the lion. Question, was this 
 action commendable ? If so, why, and if not, why not ? 
 Q The proposition was one that would appeal at once 
 to a young man, and thus did Pronto lead his pupils to 
 think and express. 
 
 Another teacher that Marcus had was Rusticus, a blunt 
 old farmer turned pedagog, who has added a word to 
 our language. His pupils were called Rusticiana, and 
 later plain rustics. That Rusticus developed in Marcus 
 a deal of plain, sturdy common sense there is no doubt. 
 Rusticus had a way of stripping a subject of its gloss 
 and verbiage going straight to the vital point of every 
 
ioo MARCUS AURELIUS 
 
 issue. For the wisdom of Marcus legal opinions Rus- 
 ticus deserves more than passing credit. 
 For the youth, who was destined to be the next Em 
 peror of Rome, there was no dearth of society if he 
 chose to accept it. Managing mammas were on every 
 corner, and kind kinsmen consented to arrange matters 
 with this heiress or that. For the frivolities of society 
 Marcus had no use his hours were filled with useful 
 work or application to his books. His father and Fronto 
 we find were both constantly urging him to get out 
 more in the sunshine and meet more people, and not 
 bother too much about the books. 
 
 How to best curtail over-application, I am told, is a 
 problem that seldom faces a teacher. 
 As for society as a matrimonial bazar, Marcus Aurelius 
 could not see that it had its use. He was afraid of it 
 afraid of himself, perhaps. He loved the little Faustina. 
 They had been comrades together, and played "keep 
 house" under the olive trees at Lorium; and had rid 
 den their ponies over the hills. Once Marcus and 
 Faustina on a ride across the country bought a lamb, 
 out of the arms of the shepherd, and kept it until it grew 
 great curling horns, and made visitors scale the wall 
 or climb trees. Then three priests led it away to sacri 
 fice, and Marcus and Faustina fell in each others arms 
 and rained tears down each others backs, and refused 
 to be comforted. What if their father was an Emperor, 
 and Marcus would be some day! it would not bring 
 back Beppo, with his innocent lamb-like ways, and 
 
MARCUS AURELIUS 101 
 
 make him get down on his knees and wag his tail when 
 they fed him out of a pail ! Beppo always got on his 
 knees to eat, and showed his love and humility before 
 he grew his horns and reached the age of indiscretion ; 
 then he became awfully wicked, and it took three stout 
 priests to lead him away and sacrifice him to the gods 
 for his own good ! 
 
 But gradually the grass grew on Beppo s make-believe 
 grave in the garden, and Pronto s problems filled the 
 vacuum in their hearts. Pronto gave his lessons to 
 Marcus, and Marcus gave them to Faustina thus do 
 we keep things by giving them away. 
 But problems greater than pet sheep grown ribald and 
 reckless were to confront Marcus and Faustina. They 
 had both been betrothed to others, years before, and 
 this they now resented. They talked of this much, and 
 then suddenly ceased to talk of it, and each evaded 
 mentioning it, and pretended they never thought of it. 
 Then they explosively began again began as suddenly 
 to talk of it, and always when they met they mentioned 
 it. Folks called them brother and sister they were 
 not brother and sister, only cousins. 
 Finally the matter was brought to Antoninus, and he 
 pretended that he had never thought about it, but in 
 fact he had thought of little else for a long time. And 
 Antoninus said that if they loved each other very much, 
 and he was sure they did, why it was the will of the 
 gods that they should marry, and he never interfered 
 with the will of the gods, and so he kissed them both 
 
102 MARCUS AURELIUS 
 
 and cried a few foolish tears, a thing an Emperor 
 should never do. 
 
 So they were married at the country seat at Lorium, 
 out under the orange trees as was often the custom, 
 for orange trees are green the year round, and bear 
 fruit and flowers at the same time, and the flowers are 
 very sweet, and the fruit is both beautiful and useful 
 and these things symbol constancy and fruitfulness and 
 good luck, and that is why we yet have orange blos 
 soms at weddings and play the "Lohengrin March," 
 which is orange trees expressed in sweet sounds. 
 Marcus was only twenty and Faustina could not have 
 been over sixteen we do not know her exact age. 
 There are stories to the effect that the wife of Marcus 
 Aurelius severely tried her husband s temper at times, 
 but these tales seem to have arisen through a confusion 
 of the two Faustinas. The elder Faustina was the one 
 who set the merry pace in frivolity, and once said that 
 any woman with a husband twenty years her senior 
 must be allowed a lover or two goodness gracious ! 
 Q As far as we know, the younger Faustina was a most 
 loyal and loving wife, the mother of a full dozen chil 
 dren. Coins issued by Marcus Aurelius stamped with 
 the features of his wife, and the inscription Concordia, 
 Faustina and Venus Felix, attest the felicity, or "felix- 
 ity," of the marriage. 
 
 Their oldest boy, Commodus, was very much like his 
 grandmother, Faustina, and a man who knows all 
 about the Law of Heredity tells me that children are 
 
MARCUS AURELIUS 103 
 
 much more apt to resemble their grandparents than 
 their father and mother. 
 
 I believe I once said that no house is big enough for 
 two families, but this truth is like the Greek verb it 
 has many exceptions. In the same house with Em 
 peror Antoninus Pius dwelt Lucilla, mother of Marcus, 
 and Marcus and his wife. And they were all very 
 happy but life was rather more peaceful after the 
 death of Faustina, the elder, which occurred a few years 
 after her husband became Emperor. 
 She could not endure prosperity. 
 
 But her husband mourned her death and made a pub 
 lic speech in eulogy of her, determined that only the 
 best should be remembered of one who had been the 
 wife of an Emperor and the mother of his children. As 
 far as we know, Antoninus never spoke a word con 
 cerning his wife except in praise, not even when she 
 left his house to be gone for months. 
 It was Ouida, she of the aqua fortis ink, who said, " A 
 woman married to a man as good as Antoninus must 
 have been very miserable, for while men who are 
 thoroughly bad are not lovable, yet a man who is not 
 occasionally bad is unendurable." And so Ouida s heart 
 went out in sympathy and condolence to the two Faus 
 tinas, who wedded the only two men mentioned in 
 Roman history who were infinitely wise and good. 
 In one of his essays, Richard Steele writes this, "No 
 woman ever loved a man through life with a mighty 
 love if the man did not occasionally abuse her." I give 
 
104 MARCUS AURELIUS 
 
 the remark for what it is worth. However, Montesqui 
 somewhere says that the chief objection to heaven is 
 its monotony, so possibly there may be something in 
 the Ouida-Steele philosophy but of this I really can t 
 say, knowing nothing about the subject, myself. 
 
 HAPPY is the man who has no history. The reign 
 of Antoninus Pius was peaceful and prosperous. 
 No great wars nor revulsions occurred, and 
 the times made for education and excellence. Antoni 
 nus worked to conserve the good, and that he suc 
 ceeded, Gibbon says, there is no doubt. He left the 
 country in better condition than he found it, and he 
 could have truthfully repeated the words of Pericles, 
 " I have made no person wear crape." 
 But there came a day when Antoninus was stricken 
 by the hand of death. The captain of the guard came to 
 him and asked for the password for the night. " Equa 
 nimity," replied the Emperor, and turning on his side, 
 sank into sleep, to awake no more. His last word sym 
 bols the guiding impulse of his life. Well does Renan 
 say, " Simple, loving, full of sweet gaiety, Antoninus 
 was a philosopher without saying so, almost without 
 knowing it. Marcus was a philosopher, but often con 
 sciously, and he became a philosopher by study and 
 reflection, aided and encouraged by the older man. * * * 
 You cannot consider the one man and leave the other 
 out, and the early contention that Antoninus was, in 
 
MARCUS AURELIUS 105 
 
 fact, the father of Marcus has at least a poetic and 
 spiritual basis in truth." 
 
 There was much in Kenan s suggestions. The greatest 
 man is he who works his philosophy up into life this 
 is better than to talk about it. We only discuss that to 
 which we have not attained, and the virtues we talk 
 most of are those beyond us. The ideal outstrips the 
 actual. But it is no discredit that a man pictures more 
 than he realizes such a one is preparing the way for 
 others. Marcus Antoninus has been a guiding star an 
 inspiration to untold millions. 
 
 Marcus Aurelius was forty years old when he became 
 Emperor of Rome. At the age of forty a man is safe, if 
 ever : character is formed, and what he will do or be 
 come, can be safely presaged. 
 
 More than once Rome has repudiated the man in the 
 direct line of accession to the throne, and before Marcus 
 Aurelius took the reins of government he asked the 
 Senate to ratify the people s choice, and thus make it 
 the choice of the gods, and this was done. 
 As Emperor, we find Marcus endeavored to carry out 
 the policy of his predecessor. He did not favor ex 
 pansion, but hoped by peace and propitiation to cement 
 the empire and thus work for education, harmony and 
 prosperity. 
 
 It is interesting to see how Marcus Aurelius in the 
 year 164 was cudgeling his brains concerning problems 
 about which we yet argue and grow red in the face. 
 The Emperor was also Chief-Justice, and questions 
 
io6 MARCUS AURELIUS 
 
 were being constantly brought to him to decide. From 
 him there was no appeal, and his decisions made the 
 law upon which all lesser judges based their rulings. 
 And curiously enough we are dealing most extensively 
 in judge-made law even to-day. 
 
 One vexed question that confronted Marcus was the 
 lessening number of marriages, with a consequent in 
 crease in illegitimate births and a gradual dwindling of 
 the free population. He seems to have disliked this 
 word, illegitimate, for he says "all children are beau 
 tiful blesssings sent by the gods." But people who 
 were legally married objected to this view, and said to 
 recognize children born out of wedlock as entitled to 
 all the privileges of citizenship is to virtually do away 
 with legal marriage. As a compromise, Marcus decided 
 to recognize all people as married who said they were 
 married. This is exactly our common-law marriage as 
 it exists in various states to-day. 
 
 However, a man could put away his wife at will, and 
 by recording the fact with the nearest praetor, the act 
 was legalized. It will thus be seen that if a man could 
 marry at will and put away his wife at will, there was 
 really no marriage beyond that of nature. To meet the 
 issue, and prevent fickle and unjust men from taking 
 advantage of women, Marcus decided that the praetor 
 could refuse to record the desired divorce, if he saw 
 fit, and demand reasons. We then for the first time get 
 a divorce trial, and on appeal to Marcus, he decided 
 that if the man were in the wrong, he must still support 
 
MARCUS AURELIUS 107 
 
 the injured wife. Q Then, for the first time, we find 
 women asking for a divorce. Now, nearly three-fourths 
 of all divorces are granted to women, but at first, that a 
 woman should want marital freedom caused a howl of 
 merriment. Marcus was the first Roman Emperor to 
 allow women the right of petition, and the privilege, 
 too, of practicing law, for Capitolanus cites various 
 instances of women coming to ask for justice, and 
 women friends coming with them to help plead their 
 case, and the Emperor of Rome, leaning his tired head 
 on his arm, listening for hours with great patience. 
 We also hear of petitions for damages being presented 
 for failure to keep a promise to marry the action being 
 brought against the girl s father. This would bethought 
 a trifle strange, but an action against a woman for 
 breach of promise is quite in order yet. 
 Recently the Hon. Henry Ballard of Vermont won heavy 
 damages against a coy and dallying heiress who had 
 played pitch and toss with a good man s heart. The 
 case was carried to the United States Supreme Court 
 and judgment sustained. 
 
 The question of marriage and divorce now in the 
 United States is almost precisely where it was in 
 Rome in the time of Marcus Aurelius. No two states 
 have the same marriage laws, and marriages which are 
 illegal in one state may be made legal in another. Yet 
 with us, any court of jurisdiction may declare any 
 marriage illegal, or set any divorce aside. What makes 
 marriage and what constitutes divorce are matters of 
 
io8 MARCUS AURELIUS 
 
 opinion in the mind of the judge. We have gone a bit 
 further than Marcus, though, in that we allow couples 
 to marry if they wish, yet divorce is denied if both 
 parties desire it. The fact that they want it is con 
 strued as proof that they should not have it. We meet 
 the issue, however, by connivance of the lawyers, who 
 are officers of the court, and a legal fiction is inaugu 
 rated by allowing a little bird to tell the judge what de 
 cision will be satisfactory to both sides. And in states 
 or countries where no divorce is allowed, marriage can 
 be annulled if you know how see Ruskin vs. Ruskin, 
 Coleridge, J. 
 
 Our zealous New Thought friends, who clamor to have 
 marriage made a difficulty and divorce easy, forget that 
 the whole question has been thrashed over for three 
 thousand years, and all schemes tried. The Romans 
 issued marriage licenses, but before doing so a praetor 
 passed on the fitness of the candidates for each other. 
 This was so embarassing to many coy couples that 
 they just waived formal proceedings and set up house 
 keeping. To declare these people law-breakers, Marcus 
 Aurelius said, would put half of Rome in limbo, just 
 as if we should technically enforce all laws it would 
 send most members of the Legislature to the peniten 
 tiary. So the Emperor declared de facto marriage de 
 jure, and for a short time succeeded in striking out the 
 word illegitimate as applied to a person, on the ground 
 that, in justice, no act of a parent could be charged up 
 against and punished in the offspring. 
 
MARCUS AURELIUS 109 
 
 MEN who make laws have forever to watch 
 most closely and dance attendance on nature. 
 Laws which fly in the face of nature are gently 
 waived or conveniently forgotten. Should Chief Justice 
 Fuller issue an injunction restraining all men from 
 coming within a quarter of a mile of a woman, on 
 penalty of death, we would all place ourselves in con 
 tempt in an hour ; and should the army try to enforce 
 the order, we would smother Justice Fuller in his wool 
 sack and hang his effigy on a sour-apple tree. Law is n t 
 worth the paper it is written on unless it embodies the 
 will and natural tendencies of the governed. Where 
 poaching is popular, no law can stop it. Marriage is 
 easy, and divorce difficult, because this is nature s plan. 
 The natural law of attraction brings men and women 
 together, and it is difficult to separate them. Natural 
 things are easy, and artificial ones difficult. Most 
 couples who desire freedom only think they do : what 
 they really want is a vacation ; but they would not sep 
 arate for good if they could. It is hard to part people 
 who have lived together grow to need each other. They 
 want some one to quarrel with. 
 
 Caesar Augustus, in his close study of character, intro 
 duced a limited divorce. That is, in case of a family 
 quarrel, he ordered the couple to live apart for six 
 months as a penalty. Quintilian says that usually before 
 the expired time the man and woman were surrepti 
 tiously living together again, at which the court quietly 
 winked, and finally this form of penalty had to be aban- 
 
MARCUS AURELIUS 
 
 doned because it made the courts ridiculous. Q Men and 
 women do not get married because marriage is legal, 
 nor do they continue living together because divorce 
 is difficult. They marry because they desire to, and they 
 do not separate because they do not want to. The task 
 that confronts the legislator is to find out what the 
 people want to do, and then legalize it. 
 In Rome, the custom of the parties divorcing them 
 selves was prevalent, and the courts were called upon 
 to ratify the act, just to give the matter respectability. 
 Below a certain stratum in society, the formality of 
 legal marriage and divorce was waived entirely, just 
 as it is largely, now, among our colored population in 
 the South. During the French Revolution, the same 
 custom largely obtained in France. And about the year 
 150 in Rome there was danger that the people would 
 overlook the Majesty of the Law entirely in their do 
 mestic affairs. This condition is what prompted Marcus 
 Aurelius to recognize as legal the common-law marriage 
 and say if a couple called themselves husband and 
 wife, they were. And for a time if they said they were 
 divorced, they were. But as a mortgage owned by a 
 man on his own property cancels the debt, and legally 
 there is no mortgage, so if the people could get married 
 at will and divorce themselves at their convenience, 
 there really was no legal marriage. Thus the matter was 
 argued. So Marcus adopted the plan of making marriage 
 easy and divorce difficult, and this has been the policy 
 in all civilized countries ever since. 
 
MARCUS AURELIUS xxx 
 
 It is very evident, however, that Marcus Aurelius 
 looked forward to a time when men and women would 
 be wise enough, and just enough, to arrange their own 
 affairs, without calling on the police to ratify either 
 their friendships or misunderstandings. He says, 
 " Love is beautiful, and that a man and woman loving 
 each other should live together, is the will of God, but 
 if there comes a time when they cannot live in peace, 
 let them part. To have no relationship is not a disgrace 
 to have wrong relations is, for disgrace means lack 
 of grace discord, and love is harmony." 
 Marcus Aurelius tried the plan of probationary mar 
 riages ; and to offset this he also introduced the Au- 
 gustinian plan of probationary divorces that is, the 
 interlocutory decree. This scheme has recently been 
 adopted in several states in America with the avowed 
 intent of preventing fraud in divorce procedure, but 
 actually the logic of the situation is the same now as 
 in the time of Marcus Aurelius it postpones the final 
 decree so as to prevent the couple from becoming the 
 victims of their own rashness, and to give them an 
 opportunity to become reconciled if possible. 
 So anxious was Marcus Aurelius to decide justly with 
 his people that he found himself swamped with cases 
 of every sort and description. He tried to pass upon 
 each case by its merits, regardless of law and prec 
 edent. Then other judges construed his decisions as 
 law, and the lesser courts cited the upper ones, until 
 Gibbon says, "There grew up such a mass of judge- 
 
ii2 MARCUS AURELIUS 
 
 made laws that a skillful lawyer could prove anything, 
 and legal practice swung on the ability to cite similar 
 cases and call attention to desired decisions." 
 In America we are now back exactly to the same con 
 dition. A lawyer in New York State requires over 
 fourteen thousand law books if he would cover all the 
 ground; and his business is to make it easy for the 
 judge to dispense justice and not dispense with law. 
 That is to say, before a judge can decide a case, he 
 must be able to back up his opinion by precedent. 
 Judges are not elected to deal out justice between man 
 and man ; they are elected to decide on points of law. 
 Law is often a great disadvantage to a judge it may 
 hamper justice, and in America there must surely soon 
 come a day when we will make a bonfire of every law 
 book in the land, and electing our judges for life, we 
 will make the judiciary free. We will then require our 
 lawyers and judges to read, and pass examinations on 
 Browning s " Ring and the Book," and none other. And 
 if we would follow the Aurelian suggestion of remitting 
 all direct taxes to every citizen who had not been plain 
 tiff in a lawsuit for ten years, we would gradually get 
 something approaching pure justice. The people must 
 be educated to quietly and calmly decide their own dis 
 putes, and this can only be done by placing an obvious 
 penalty on litigation. Progress in the future will consist 
 in having less law, and fulfilment will be reached when 
 we have no law at all each man governing himself, 
 and being willing that his neighbor shall do the same. 
 
MARCUS AURELIUS 113 
 
 Trouble arises largely from each man regarding him 
 self as his brother s keeper, and ceasing to be his friend. 
 Marcus Aurelius, the wise judge, saw that most litiga 
 tion is foolish and absurd both parties are at fault, and 
 both right. And to bring about the good time when 
 men shall live in peace, he began earnestly to govern 
 himself. His ideal was a state where men would need 
 no governing. Hence his " Meditations," a book which 
 Dean Farrar says is not inferior to the New Testament 
 in its lofty aim and purity of conception. 
 Every great book is an evolution: Marcus had been 
 getting ready to write this immortal volume for nearly 
 half a century. And now in his fifty-seventh year he 
 found himself in the desert of Asia at the head of the 
 army, endeavoring to put down an insurrection of 
 various barbaric tribes. Later, the seat of war was 
 shifted to the North. The enemy struck and retreated, 
 and danced around him as the Boers fought the English 
 in South Africa. 
 
 But Marcus Aurelius had time to think, and so with 
 no books near and all memoranda far away, he began 
 to write out his best thoughts. At first he expressed 
 just for his own satisfaction, but later, as the work 
 progressed, we see that its value grew upon him, and 
 it was his intention to put it in systematic form for 
 posterity. And while working at this task, the exposures 
 of field and camp, and the business of war, in which he 
 had no heart, worked upon him so adversely that he 
 sickened and died, aged fifty-nine. 
 
ii4 MARCUS AURELIUS 
 
 His body was carried back to Rome and placed by the 
 side of that of his beloved adopted father, Antoninus 
 Pius. And so he sleeps, but the precious legacy of the 
 " Meditations," written during those last two years of 
 travel, turmoil and strife, is ours. 
 A few quotations seem in order : 
 
 Remember, on every occasion which leads thee to vex 
 ation, to apply this principle: not that this is a mis 
 fortune, but that to bear it nobly is good fortune. 
 
 Things do not touch the soul, for they are eternal, and 
 remain immovable; but our perturbations come only 
 from the opinion which is within. * * * The Universe 
 is transformation; life is opinion. 
 
 To the jaundiced, honey tastes bitter; and to those 
 bitten by mad dogs, water causes fear; and to little 
 children, the ball is a fine thing. Why then am I angry ? 
 Dost thou think that a false opinion has less power 
 than the bile in the jaundiced, or the poison in him who 
 is bitten by a mad dog ? 
 
 How easy it is to repel and to wipe away every im 
 pression which is troublesome and unsuitable, and 
 immediately to be in all tranquillity ! 
 
 All things come from the universal Ruling Power, either 
 directly or by way of consequence. And accordingly 
 the lion s gaping jaws, and that which is poisonous, 
 and every hurtful thing, as a thorn, as mud, are after- 
 products of the grand and beautiful. Do not therefore 
 imagine that they are of another kind from that which 
 thou dost venerate, but form a just opinion of the 
 source of all. 
 
 Pass through the rest of life like one who has intrusted 
 
MARCUS AURELIUS 115 
 
 to the gods, with his whole soul, all that he has, 
 making himself neither the tyrant nor the slave of any 
 man dT *T 
 
 Never value anything as profitable to thyself which 
 shall compel thee to break thy promise, to lose thy 
 self-respect, to hate any man, to suspect, to curse, to 
 act the hypocrite, to desire anything which needs walls 
 and curtains. 
 
 I am thankful to the gods that I was subjected to a 
 ruler and a father who was able to take away all pride 
 from me, and to bring me to the knowledge that it is 
 possible for a man to live in a palace without wanting 
 either guards or embroidered dresses, or torches and 
 statues, and such-like show ; but that it is in such a 
 man s power to bring himself very near to the fashion 
 of a private person, without being, for this reason, 
 either meaner in thought or more remiss in action, with 
 respect to the things which must be done for the public 
 interest in a manner that befits a ruler. 
 
 What more dost thou want when thou hast done a 
 man a service? Art thou not content that thou hast 
 done something conformable to thy nature, and dost 
 thou seek to be paid for it ? Just as if the eye demanded 
 a recompense for seeing, or the feet for walking. As a 
 horse when he has run, a dog when he has tracked the 
 game, a bee when it has made the honey, so a man, 
 when he has done a good act, does not call out for 
 others to come and see, but goes on to another act, as 
 a vine goes on to produce again the grapes in season. 
 
 Accustom thyself to attend carefully to what is said by 
 another, & as much as it is possible, be in the speaker s 
 mind ar jf 
 
116 MARCUS AURELIUS 
 
 Some things are hurrying into existence, and others 
 are hurrying out of it ; and of that which is coming into 
 existence, part is already extinguished. Motions and 
 changes are continually renewing the world, just as the 
 uninterrupted course of time is always renewing the 
 infinite duration of ages. 
 
 Understand that every man is worth just so much as 
 the things are worth about which he busies himself. 
 
 "Wickedness does no harm at all to the universe, it is 
 only harmful to him who has it in his power to be re 
 leased from it. 
 
 Nothing is more wretched than a man who traverses 
 everything in a round, and pries into the things beneath 
 the earth, as the poet says, and seeks by conjecture 
 what is in the minds of his neighbors, without per 
 ceiving that it is sufficient to attend to the deity within 
 him, and to reverence it sincerely. 
 
 The prayers of Marcus Aurelius to the gods are for one 
 thing only that their will be done. All else is vain, all 
 else is rebellion against the universe itself. Our form of 
 worship should be like this: Everything harmonizes 
 with me which is harmonious to thee, O Universe. 
 Nothing for me is too early nor too late, which is in 
 due time for thee. Everything is fruit to me which thy 
 seasons bring, O Nature : from thee are all things, in 
 thee are all things, to thee all things return. 
 
 In the morning when thou risest unwillingly, let this 
 thought be present I am rising to the work of a hu 
 man being. Why, then, am I dissatisfied if I am going 
 to do the things for which I exist, and for which I was 
 brought into the world ? Or have I been made for this, 
 to lie in the bedclothes and keep myself warm ? But 
 
MARCUS AURELIUS 117 
 
 this is more pleasant. Dost thou exist, then, to take 
 thy pleasure, and not for action or exertion ? Dost thou 
 not see the little plants, the little birds, the ants, the 
 spiders, the bees, working together to put in order their 
 several parts of the universe ? And art thou unwilling 
 to do the work of a human being, and dost thou not 
 make haste to do that which is according to thy nature ? 
 
 Judge every word and deed which are according to na 
 ture to be fit for thee, and be not diverted by the blame 
 which follows. * * * But if a thing is good to be done 
 or said, do not consider it unworthy of thee. 
 
 It is not fit that I should give myself pain, for I have 
 never intentionally given pain even to another. 
 
 Since it is possible that thou mayest depart from life 
 this very moment, regulate every act and thought ac 
 cordingly. * * * Death certainly, and life, honor and 
 dishonor, pain and pleasure, all these things equally 
 happen to good men and bad, being things which make 
 us neither better nor worse. Therefore they are neither 
 good nor evil. 
 
 To say all in a word, everything which belongs to the 
 body is a stream, and what belongs to the soul is a 
 dream & vapor; and life is a warfare, and a stranger s 
 sojourn, and after fame is oblivion. What then, is that 
 which is able to enrich a man? One thing, and only 
 one philosophy. But this consists in keeping the 
 guardian spirit within a man free from violence and 
 unharmed, superior to pains and pleasures, doing 
 nothing without a purpose, nor yet falsely, and with 
 hypocrisy * * * accepting all that happens and all 
 that is allotted * * * and finally waiting for death with. 
 a cheerful mind. 
 
ii8 MARCUS AURELIUS 
 
 If thou findest in human life anything better than jus 
 tice, truth, temperance, fortitude, and, in a word, than 
 thine own soul s satisfaction in the things which it en 
 ables thee to do according to right reason, and in the 
 condition that is assigned to thee without thy own 
 choice; if, I say, thou seest anything better than this, 
 turn to it with all thy soul, and enjoy that which thou 
 hast found to be the best. But * * * if thou findest 
 everything else smaller and of less value than this, give 
 place to nothing else. * * * Simply and freely choose 
 the better, and hold to it. 
 
 Men seek retreats for themselves, houses in the country, 
 sea-shores, and mountains ; and thou too art wont to 
 desire such things very much. But this is altogether a 
 mark of the most common sort of men, for it is in thy 
 power whenever thou shalt choose to retire into thyself. 
 For nowhere either with more quiet or more freedom 
 from trouble does a man retire than into his own soul, 
 particularly when he has within him such thoughts that 
 by looking into them he is immediately in perfect tran 
 quillity which is nothing else than the good ordering 
 of the mind. 
 
 Unhappy am I, because this has happened to me? Not 
 so, but happy am I though this has happened to me, 
 because I continue free from pain ; neither crushed by 
 the present, nor fearing the future. 
 
 Be cheerful, and seek not external help, nor the tran 
 quillity which others give. A man must stand erect, not 
 be kept erect by others. 
 
 Be like the promontory against which the waves con 
 tinually break, but it stands firm and tames the fury of 
 the water around it. 
 
SO HERE ENDETH THE LITTLE JOURNEY TO THE 
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