1106 lines
54 KiB
Plaintext
1106 lines
54 KiB
Plaintext
17 page printout, page 48 to 64
|
||
INGERSOLL, A BIOGRAPHICAL APPRECIATION
|
||
|
||
CHAPTER 5.
|
||
|
||
FROM EIGHTEEN SEVENTY-EIGHT TO
|
||
EIGHTEEN EIGHTY-FIVE.
|
||
|
||
In 1878 Ingersoll wrote his Robert Burns, a lecture. It was
|
||
published posthumously, the unrevised original "notes" of it being
|
||
found among the orator's papers.
|
||
|
||
Robert Ingersoll adored Robert Burns; but it was doubtless
|
||
quite another circumstance that prompted Rev. Henry Ward Beecher to
|
||
propose as an epitaph for the Great Agnostic the hallowed name of
|
||
"the ploughman poet."
|
||
|
||
Ingersoll once said: --
|
||
|
||
" * * * the first man that let up the curtain in my mind, that
|
||
ever opened a blind, that ever allowed a little sunshine to
|
||
straggle in, was Robert Burns. I went to get my shoes mended, and
|
||
I had to go with them. And I had to wait till they were done.
|
||
|
||
"When I went into the shop of the old Scotch shoemaker he was
|
||
reading a book, which was 'Robert Burns.' In a few days I had a
|
||
copy; and, indeed, gentlemen, from that time if 'Burns' had been
|
||
destroyed I could have restored more than half of it. It was in my
|
||
mind day and night." And he continued, in a metaphorical strain
|
||
typically illustrative of his wonderfully epigrammatic critical
|
||
powers: --
|
||
|
||
"Burns you know is a little valley, not very wide, but full of
|
||
sunshine; a little stream runs down making music over the rocks,
|
||
and children play upon the banks; narrow roads overrun with vines,
|
||
covered with blossoms, happy children, the hum of bees, and little
|
||
birds pour out their hearts and enrich the air. That is Burns."
|
||
|
||
In further description of the first impression which the
|
||
latter made upon him, he elsewhere said: --
|
||
|
||
"I was familiar with the writings of the devout and insincere,
|
||
the pious and petrified, the pure and heartless. Here was a natural
|
||
honest man. I knew the works those who regarded all nature as
|
||
depraved, and who looked upon love as the legacy and perpetual
|
||
witness of original sin. Here was a man who plucked joy from the
|
||
mire, made goddesses of peasant girls, and enthroned the honest
|
||
man. One whose sympathy, with loving arms, embraced all forms of
|
||
suffering life, who hated slavery of every kind, who was as natural
|
||
as heaven's blue, with humor kindly as an autumn day, with wit as
|
||
sharp as Ithuriel's spear, and scorn that blasted like the simoon's
|
||
breath. A man who loved this world, this life, the things of every
|
||
day, and placed above all else the thrilling ecstacies of human
|
||
love.
|
||
|
||
"I read and read again with rapture, tears and smiles, feeling
|
||
that a great heart was throbbing in the lines."
|
||
|
||
The lecture (which begins by placing Burns next to
|
||
Shakespeare) considers, with rare poetic insight, the essentials of
|
||
poetry; contrasts the "educated talent" of Tennyson with the "real
|
||
|
||
Bank of Wisdom
|
||
Box 926, Louisville, KY 40201
|
||
48
|
||
|
||
INGERSOLL, A BIOGRAPHICAL APPRECIATION
|
||
|
||
genius" of Burns; and reviews, in a spirit of pathos and worshipful
|
||
tenderness that is divine, the poet's life, -- "from the little
|
||
house of clay with one room where he was born, to the little house
|
||
with one room where he now sleeps."
|
||
|
||
It is a favorite assertion of the literati, that orators do
|
||
not produce prose -- (As a matter of fact, prose is about all that
|
||
most of them do produce!); and Ingersoll is not generally
|
||
recognized as a literary critic. Nevertheless, his comparison of
|
||
Burns and Tennyson is at once one of the most masterly pieces of
|
||
prose, and one of the most just, sympathetic, and illuminating
|
||
pieces of criticism, to be found in English letters.
|
||
|
||
Ingersoll was abroad this year, for the second and last time,
|
||
visiting England, Scotland, and France; and it was on August 19th,
|
||
during his sojourn at the birthplace of Burns, that he wrote the
|
||
following poem, with which the lecture concludes; --
|
||
|
||
"THE BIRTHPLACE OF BURNS.
|
||
|
||
"Though Scotland boasts a thousand names
|
||
Of patriot, king and peer,
|
||
The nobelist, grandest of them all
|
||
Was loved and cradled here:
|
||
Here lived the gentle pleasant-prince,
|
||
The loving cotter-king,
|
||
Compared with whom the greatest lord
|
||
Is but a titled thing.
|
||
|
||
"'Tis but a cot roofed in with straw,
|
||
A hovel made of clay;
|
||
One door shuts out the snow and storm,
|
||
One window greets the day:
|
||
And yet I stand within this room
|
||
And hold all thrones in scorn;
|
||
For here, beneath this lowly thatch,
|
||
Love's sweetest bard was born.
|
||
|
||
"Within this hollowed hut I feel
|
||
Like one who clasps a shrine,
|
||
When the glad lips at last have touched
|
||
The something deemed divine.
|
||
And here the world through all the years,
|
||
As long as day returns,
|
||
The tribute of its love and tears
|
||
Will pay to Robert Burns."
|
||
|
||
It bespeaks a praiseworthy mental breadth in at least two
|
||
adherents to the faith which both Burns and Ingersoll unreservedly
|
||
condemned, that Mr. John E. Milholland, of New York, and Ian
|
||
Maclaren (Rev. Dr. John Watson) were instrumental in securing for
|
||
this poem its rightful place on the walls of the Burns cottage at
|
||
Alloway.
|
||
|
||
Their action came about, as follows. On a visit to Ayr, Mr.
|
||
Milholland was given a copy of the poem, in ordinary print, minus
|
||
the name of its author. Resenting the literary wrong thus being
|
||
perpetrated, he took with him, on a subsequent visit, a
|
||
|
||
Bank of Wisdom
|
||
Box 926, Louisville, KY 40201
|
||
49
|
||
|
||
INGERSOLL, A BIOGRAPHICAL APPRECIATION
|
||
|
||
photographic copy of the original manuscript, on cardboard, with
|
||
marginal portraits of Burns and Ingersoll. With this, he appealed
|
||
to his friend Dr. Watson, asking that he call a meeting of the
|
||
board of management at Ayr to consider the matter. Dr. Watson
|
||
responded, with the result that the photographic copy of the poem,
|
||
as just described, was officially accepted.
|
||
|
||
When Mary Livingston Ingersoll passed into the dark and silent
|
||
valley, on December 2, 1835," not knowing that, in the chubby
|
||
little armful impatiently wondering at her tearful clasp -- so long
|
||
her kisses, -- so many and so tender, she had dowered mankind with
|
||
the noblest of the century, she left behind another child to whom
|
||
her tears, her kisses, her strange white stillness, were not quite
|
||
so wonderful, yet -- wonderful! Why did mamma "sleep" so long? He
|
||
would soon be four years old -- would mamma be "asleep" on that
|
||
day? Perhaps not. But on December 12th little Robert, prattling,
|
||
played with his homely toys, while Ebon Clark Ingersoll stood
|
||
silent and looked on -- wondering. In a little while, both knew
|
||
that mamma would not wake again -- that she would always lie still
|
||
and cold; and this thought kept their hearts warm to each other.
|
||
"Love is a flower that grows on the edge of the grave."
|
||
|
||
And so, from day to day, from year to year, -- here and there,
|
||
-- in sunshine and in shadow, with the memory of mother to guide
|
||
them, "Clark" and "Robin," as they came to call each other in
|
||
almost worshipful tenderness, played and studied, struggled and
|
||
sorrowed, together. Together they spent those gloomy orthodox
|
||
Sabbaths, when liberty died out with day on Saturday, and was
|
||
forgotten of all but childhood until the sun sullenly retired on
|
||
Sunday. Together they listened to the frightful and dreary
|
||
dissertations of orthodoxy, afterwards discussing them until, upon
|
||
all of the questions involved, they thought substantially as one,
|
||
and, of course, substantially as the preacher did not. It is
|
||
surprising that if, in matters theological, one of these brothers
|
||
was the more radical, it was "Clark." Probably this was due to a
|
||
temperamental difference; for, where his more gifted brother would
|
||
argue with the orthodox, "Clark" would refrain from the discussion
|
||
of dogmas the falsity of which, he felt, ought to be perfectly
|
||
transparent to every one. He was in unqualified agreement with the
|
||
dictum of Thomas Paine, that "to argue with a man who has renounced
|
||
his reason is like giving medicine to the dead." But in the light
|
||
of the preceding, we can imagine how ideal must have been the
|
||
sympathies of brothers occupying so high an intellectual plane as
|
||
"Clark" and "Robin." Between their minds, as between their hearts,
|
||
was a golden and inseverable bond.
|
||
|
||
When, therefore, they began to tread ambition's upward path,
|
||
they were hand in hand. Together they went to the bar at Mount
|
||
Vernon -- into practice -- into politics -- to success. In these
|
||
larger relations, their mutual devotion remained absolute. Thus
|
||
Robert refused to accept any office in the district in which
|
||
"Clark" was "running" for Congress; and while Robert himself was
|
||
being talked of as a candidate for the governorship, he visited
|
||
Chicago and engaged in an altercation with Horace White, of the
|
||
Tribune, over a published article concerning "Clark's" official
|
||
course in Washington.
|
||
|
||
|
||
|
||
Bank of Wisdom
|
||
Box 926, Louisville, KY 40201
|
||
50
|
||
|
||
INGERSOLL, A BIOGRAPHICAL APPRECIATION
|
||
|
||
Next to Eva Ingersoll herself, "Clark" was Robert's most
|
||
loving critic. In the old days, -- long before the latter's genius
|
||
soared afar on the wings of recognition, -- "Clark" was clearly
|
||
conscious of the divine fire that kindled and illumined the great
|
||
soul beside him. And when, at the Cincinnati convention, Robert,
|
||
already the oratorical wonder of a state, became, in those few
|
||
indescribable moments, the oratorical wonder of the nation, "Clark"
|
||
was the first to clasp his brother's hands, in inexpressible pride
|
||
and joy. Another occasion, a month later, brought the following: --
|
||
|
||
"LAW OFFICE OF E.C. INGERSOLL,
|
||
810 F St.
|
||
Washington, D.C.
|
||
|
||
July 11, 1876.
|
||
|
||
Ever Dearest Brother:
|
||
|
||
"I have just read your grand oration delivered on the 4th. I
|
||
paid it the tribute of my tears. It is full of sublime utterances
|
||
and golden truths. You are always at the bed-rock of things. You
|
||
think deeper and broader than anybody; and then you are absolutely
|
||
untrammeled! Your thoughts have the irresistible and boundless
|
||
sweep of the ocean, and the directness of a ray of light. I wish
|
||
your oration could be read by every human being on the globe! The
|
||
whole race would be elevated, except those 'robbers called kings,'
|
||
and those 'hypocrites called priests.' My dear and splendid
|
||
brother, I cannot tell you how proud I am of you, nor how much I
|
||
love you. I will meet you in Phila. next Saturday. If you wish to
|
||
stop at any other hotel than the Girard, let me know.
|
||
|
||
With infinite love,
|
||
Your devoted brother
|
||
|
||
E.C. Ingersoll."
|
||
|
||
Again, with assurance not only of personal admiration and
|
||
devotion, but of the admiration and devotion of others: --
|
||
|
||
"1403 K St.
|
||
Washington, D.C.
|
||
April 3, '77
|
||
|
||
"Ever Dearest Brother:
|
||
|
||
"I read yours with report of your speech at Chicago. I ran it
|
||
over hurriedly and saw you had made the best of all your political
|
||
speeches. I cannot tell you how proud I am of you. Your name and
|
||
praise are in the mouth of every one I meet. I put the paper in my
|
||
pocket and went over to the White House. I told Rogers about it,
|
||
and he insisted that I should leave it with him, so he might read
|
||
it to the Pres't. I left it with him, but on condition he would
|
||
return it to me. Have not called since, but will to-night, and get
|
||
it. Then I will read it all with pleasure. Before going over to the
|
||
White House, I received a telegram, addressed to you, from S_____,
|
||
saying, in substance: 'Can I rely on you to write biographical
|
||
sketch of Hayes, for cyclopedia? Would furnish you the few facts
|
||
|
||
|
||
Bank of Wisdom
|
||
Box 926, Louisville, KY 40201
|
||
51
|
||
|
||
INGERSOLL, A BIOGRAPHICAL APPRECIATION
|
||
|
||
necessary, and you could embellish them.' Hayes wished me to send
|
||
you his best regards, etc., and Rogers also. Gen'l Sherman called
|
||
the other evening, at the house, on you and me. I had a pleasant
|
||
visit with him, and as he was leaving he said: 'Give my love to
|
||
your brother when you write.' I am lonesome without you, and am
|
||
pretty blue. When shall I hold you in my arms again?
|
||
|
||
"Ever your devoted brother
|
||
|
||
Clark."
|
||
|
||
On Robert's part were the same beautiful manifestations of
|
||
affection. Thus, as the dedication of an edition of lectures,
|
||
addresses, etc., he wrote: --
|
||
|
||
"To Ebon C. Ingersoll, my brother, from whose lips heard the
|
||
first applause, and with whose name I wish my own associated until
|
||
both are forgotten, this volume is dedicated."
|
||
|
||
Whether any other two brothers ever loved each other as
|
||
intensely as they, cannot, of course, be stated; but that no other
|
||
two ever loved more intensely is at least morally certain.
|
||
|
||
When, therefore, on May 31, 1879, death suddenly stilled the
|
||
heart of Ebon Clark Ingersoll, it visited his brother with a grief
|
||
more poignant and overwhelming than he had ever experienced, not
|
||
only, but a grief that few brothers, as such, have ever known. It
|
||
was only after great effort in the mastery of his feelings, that he
|
||
was able to undertake the fulfillment of the loving compact made
|
||
years before; and as he stood at last by his brother's bier, his
|
||
grief, frequently welling up in tearful interference with his
|
||
utterance, finally compelled an interruption more pathetic even
|
||
than his words: --
|
||
|
||
"Dear Friends: I am going to do that which the dead oft
|
||
promised he would do for me.
|
||
|
||
"The loved and loving brother, husband, father, friend, died
|
||
where manhood's morning almost touches noon, and while the shadows
|
||
still fell toward the west.
|
||
|
||
"He had not passed on life's highway the stone that marks the
|
||
highest point; but being weary for a moment, he lay down by the
|
||
wayside, and using his burden for a pillow, fell into that
|
||
dreamless sleep that kisses down his eyelids still. While yet in
|
||
love with life and raptured with world, he passed to silence and
|
||
pathetic dust.
|
||
|
||
"Yet, after all, it may be best, just in the happiest,
|
||
sunniest hour of all the voyage, while eager winds are kissing
|
||
every sail, to dash against the unseen rock, and in an instant hear
|
||
the billows roar above a sunken ship. For whether in mid sea or
|
||
'mong the breakers of the farther shore, a wreck at last must mark
|
||
the end of each and all. And every life, no matter if its every
|
||
hour is rich with love and every moment jeweled with joy, will, at
|
||
its close, become a tragedy as sad and deep and dark as can be
|
||
woven of the warp and woof of mystery and death.
|
||
|
||
|
||
Bank of Wisdom
|
||
Box 926, Louisville, KY 40201
|
||
52
|
||
|
||
INGERSOLL, A BIOGRAPHICAL APPRECIATION
|
||
|
||
"This brave and tender man in every storm of life was oak and
|
||
rock; but in the sunshine he was vine and flower. He was the friend
|
||
of all heroic souls. He climbed the heights, and left all
|
||
superstitions far below, while on his forehead fell the golden
|
||
dawning of the grander day.
|
||
|
||
"He loved the beautiful, and was with color, form, and music
|
||
touched to tears. He sided with the weak, the poor, and wronged,
|
||
and lovingly gave alms. With loyal heart and with the purist hands
|
||
he faithfully discharged all public trusts.
|
||
|
||
"He was a worshiper of liberty, a friend of the oppressed. A
|
||
thousand times I have heard him quote these words: 'For Justice all
|
||
place a temple, and all seasons, summer.' He believed that
|
||
happiness is the only good, reason the only torch, justice the only
|
||
worship, humanity the only religion, and love the only priest. He
|
||
added to the sum of human joy; and were every one to whom he did
|
||
some loving service to bring a blossom to his grave, he would sleep
|
||
to-night beneath a wilderness of flowers.
|
||
|
||
"Life is a narrow vale between the cold and barren peaks of
|
||
two eternities. We strive in vain to look beyond the heights. We
|
||
cry aloud. and the only answer is the echo of our wailling cry.
|
||
From the voiceless lips of the unreplying dead there comes no word;
|
||
but in the night of death hope sees a star and listening love can
|
||
hear the rustle of a wing.
|
||
|
||
"He who sleeps here, when dying, mistook the approach of death
|
||
for the return of health, whispered with his last breath, 'I am
|
||
better now.' Let us believe, in spite of doubts and dogmas, of
|
||
fears and tears, that those dear words are true of all the
|
||
countless dead.
|
||
|
||
"The record of a generous life runs like a vine around the
|
||
memory of our dead, and every sweet, unselfish act is now a
|
||
perfumed flower.
|
||
|
||
"And now, to you, who have been chosen, from among the many
|
||
men he loved, to do the last sad office for the dead, we give his
|
||
sacred dust.
|
||
|
||
"Speech cannot contain our love. There was, there is, no
|
||
gentler, stronger, manlier man."
|
||
|
||
[NOTE: This tribute was delivered at the funeral, which took
|
||
place from the late residence of the deceased, No. 1403 K Street,
|
||
Northwest, Washington D.C. on June 2, 1879, and which was one of
|
||
the largest gatherings of distinguished persons ever seen at a
|
||
funeral in the national capital. The pall-bearers were: Senators
|
||
William B. Allison, James G. Blaine, David Davis, Daniel W.
|
||
Voohees, and A.S. Paddock; Representatives James A. Garfield,
|
||
Thomas Q Boyd, and Adlai E. Stevenson; ex-Representative Jere
|
||
Wilson and Hon. Ward H Lemon.]
|
||
|
||
|
||
|
||
|
||
|
||
|
||
Bank of Wisdom
|
||
Box 926, Louisville, KY 40201
|
||
53
|
||
|
||
INGERSOLL, A BIOGRAPHICAL APPRECIATION
|
||
|
||
3.
|
||
|
||
On the evening of November 13th, at the Grant banquet, Palmer
|
||
House, Chicago, Ingersoll responded to the toast: "The volunteer
|
||
soldiers of the Union army, whose valor and patriotism saved to the
|
||
world 'a government of the people, by the people, and for the
|
||
people.'" Among the speakers (Sherman being toastmaster) were
|
||
Grant, Logan, Woodford, Pope, Wilson, Vilas, and Mark Twain.
|
||
Therefore, the task of responding to the twelfth toast was one of
|
||
unusual difficulty. Ingersoll's "reputation as the first orator in
|
||
America," said the Indianapolis Journal, editorially, "caused the
|
||
distinguished audience to expect a wonderful display of oratory
|
||
from him. He proved fully equal to the occasion, and delivered a
|
||
speech of wonderful eloquence, brilliancy, and power. * * * The
|
||
speech is both an oration and a poem. It bristles with ideas, and
|
||
sparkles with epigrammatic expressions. It is full of thoughts that
|
||
breathe, and words that burn. The closing sentences read like blank
|
||
verse. It is wonderful oratory, marvelous eloquence. Colonel
|
||
Ingersoll fully sustained his reputation as the finest orator in
|
||
America." And the Chicago Inter-Ocean observed, also editorially,
|
||
that, when he "rose, * * * a large part of the audience rose with
|
||
him; and the cheering was long and loud. Colonel Ingersoll may
|
||
fairly be regarded as the foremost orator of America; and there was
|
||
the keenest interest to hear him, after all the brilliant speeches
|
||
that had preceded. * * * [He] had not proceeded far when the old
|
||
fire broke out, and flashing metaphor, bold denunciation, and all
|
||
the rich imagery and poetical beauty which mark his great efforts
|
||
stood revealed before the delighted listeners. Long before the last
|
||
word was uttered, all doubt as to the ability of the great orator
|
||
to sustain himself had departed; and, rising to their feet, the
|
||
audience cheered until the hall rang with shouts. Like Henry, 'the
|
||
forest-born Demosthenes, whose thunder shook the Philip of the
|
||
Seas,' Ingersoll still held the crown within his grasp."
|
||
|
||
And why should he not have held it? That no other American had
|
||
lived who could have made such a masterful address on such an
|
||
occasion, is as certain as that no other American than Poe could
|
||
have written The Raven. However, that no other American orator
|
||
could have approached Ingersoll then, is no more certain than that
|
||
he himself had produced far greater effects before, and that he
|
||
produced far greater effects afterwards.
|
||
|
||
But, even with his own magic touchstone to guide us, what
|
||
shall we say of this! --
|
||
|
||
"The North, filled with intelligence and wealth -- children of
|
||
liberty -- marshalled her hosts and asked only for a leader. From
|
||
civil life a man, silent, thoughtful, poised and calm, stepped
|
||
forth, and with the lips of victory voiced the Nation's first and
|
||
last demand: "Unconditional and immediate surrender.'"
|
||
|
||
A man, thoughtful, poised and calm. In such a setting, is this
|
||
a portrait of Grant? or is it a blurred and faded tracing of
|
||
somebody else?
|
||
|
||
And when will this vine wither on the tomb of the great
|
||
liberator? --
|
||
|
||
|
||
Bank of Wisdom
|
||
Box 926, Louisville, KY 40201
|
||
54
|
||
|
||
INGERSOLL, A BIOGRAPHICAL APPRECIATION
|
||
|
||
"Lincoln, the greatest of our mighty dead, whose memory is as
|
||
gentle as the summer air when reapers sing amid gathered sheaves *
|
||
* * ."
|
||
|
||
If all the rhetoric and all the rest of Ingersoll were blotted
|
||
out, where else than to the following could we send the student for
|
||
an example of perfectly balanced hyperbole -- the hyperbole of
|
||
patriotism? --
|
||
|
||
"Blood was water, money was leaves, and life was only common
|
||
air until one flag floated over a Republic without a master and
|
||
without a slave."
|
||
|
||
But shall this gem of tragedy and pathos be dimmed with aught
|
||
but tears? Shall it be marred with the sacrilegious pen of
|
||
rhetorical analysis? --
|
||
|
||
"And now let us drink to the volunteers -- to those who sleep
|
||
in unknown graves, whose names are only in the hearts of those they
|
||
loved and left -- of those who only hear in happy dreams the
|
||
footsteps of return. Let us drink to those who died where lipless
|
||
famine mocked at want; to all the maimed whose scars give modesty
|
||
a tongue; to all who dared and gave to chance the care and keeping
|
||
of their lives; to all the living and to all the dead, -- to
|
||
Sherman, to Sheridan, and to Grant, the lureled soldier of the
|
||
world, and last, to Lincoln, whose loving life, like a bow of
|
||
peace, spans and arches all the clouds of war."
|
||
|
||
4.
|
||
|
||
During this year, Ingersoll also published Some Mistakes of
|
||
Moses, one of the ablest (and the longest) of his lectures,
|
||
declaring that "the destroyer of weeds, thistles and thorns is a
|
||
benefactor whether he soweth grain or not."
|
||
|
||
On January 24th of the following year 1880, he delivered in
|
||
Washington the Suffrage Address, a plea for universal suffrage and
|
||
self-government for the District of Columbia.
|
||
|
||
He participated in the campaign of Garfield, addressing in
|
||
Wall Street, New York, on October 28th, an assemblage which,
|
||
according to the New York Times, words were "entirely inadequate to
|
||
describe," and which "never was equaled in point of numbers,
|
||
respectability, or enthusiasm, even during the excitement caused by
|
||
the outbreak of the Rebellion."
|
||
|
||
Two days later, he addressed what was, in the language of the
|
||
New York Harold, "the greatest political audience that * * * ever
|
||
assembled in Brooklyn." On this occasion (in the Academy of Music),
|
||
he was introduced by Rev. Henry Ward Beecher, who said, in part: --
|
||
|
||
"I am not accustomed to preside at meetings like this; only
|
||
the exigency of the times could induce me to do it. I am not here,
|
||
either, to make a speech, but more especially to introduce the
|
||
eminent orator of the evening. * * * I stand not as a minister, but
|
||
as a man among men, pleading the cause of fellowship and equal
|
||
rights. We are not here as mechanics, as artists, merchants, or
|
||
|
||
|
||
Bank of Wisdom
|
||
Box 926, Louisville, KY 40201
|
||
55
|
||
|
||
INGERSOLL, A BIOGRAPHICAL APPRECIATION
|
||
|
||
professional men, but as fellow-citizens. The gentleman who will
|
||
speak to-night is in no conventicle or church. He is to speak to a
|
||
great body of citizens, and I take the liberty of saying that I
|
||
respect him as the man that for a full score and more of years has
|
||
worked for the right in the great, broad field of humanity, and for
|
||
the cause of human rights. I consider it an honor to extend to him,
|
||
as I do now, the warm, earnest, right hand of fellowship."
|
||
|
||
As Beecher spoke this sentence, he turned to Ingersoll and
|
||
extended his hand, the palms of the two meeting with an audible
|
||
clasp.
|
||
|
||
"I now introduce to you," continued the great Christian
|
||
divine, leading the Great Agnostic forward, "a man who -- and I say
|
||
it not flatteringly -- is the most brilliant speaker of the English
|
||
tongue of all men on this globe. But as under the brilliancy of the
|
||
blaze of light we find living coals of fire, under the lambent flow
|
||
of his wit and magnificent antithesis we find the glorious flame of
|
||
genius and honest thought. Ladies and Gentlemen, Mr. Ingersoll."
|
||
|
||
"The orator," continues the Harold, "spoke in his best vein,
|
||
and his audience was responsive to the wonderful magical spell of
|
||
his eloquence. And when his last glowing utterance had lost its
|
||
echo in the wild storm of applause that rewarded him at the close,
|
||
Mr. Beecher again stepped forward, and, as if to emphasize the
|
||
earnestness of his previous compliments, proposed a vote of thanks
|
||
to the distinguished speaker. The vote was a roar of affirmation,
|
||
whose voice was not stronger when Mr. Ingersoll, in turn, called
|
||
upon the audience to give three cheers for the great preacher. They
|
||
were given, and repeated three times over. Men waved their hats and
|
||
umbrellas; ladies, of whom there were many hundreds present, waved
|
||
their handkerchiefs; and men, strangers to each other, shook hands
|
||
with the fervency of brotherhood. It was indeed a strange scene,
|
||
and the principal actors in it seemed, not less than the most
|
||
wildly excited man there, to appreciate its peculiar import and
|
||
significance."
|
||
|
||
Ingersoll's original anti-theological labors during this year
|
||
were comprised in the publication of the lecture What We Must Do To
|
||
Be Saved?
|
||
|
||
In 1881 came Some Reasons Why (a lecture) and The Great
|
||
Infidels (also a lecture), which latter caused clergymen,
|
||
throughout the country, to renew their attacks upon the Great
|
||
Agnostic. This lecture was posthumously published from unrevised
|
||
"notes."
|
||
|
||
5.
|
||
|
||
During the same year, Ingersoll was requested by the North
|
||
American Review to write an article on Christianity, the article to
|
||
be published in the Review if some one would furnish a reply.'
|
||
|
||
[NOTE: Not long after this, but before he knew who was to
|
||
reply to him Ingersoll was in Philadelphia , and chanced to meet
|
||
Judge Jeremiah S.Black, with whom he was well acquainted.
|
||
|
||
|
||
|
||
Bank of Wisdom
|
||
Box 926, Louisville, KY 40201
|
||
56
|
||
|
||
INGERSOLL, A BIOGRAPHICAL APPRECIATION
|
||
|
||
"I have a good mind to run up one side of you and down the
|
||
other, on that hobby of yours, Colonel," Remarked the Judge.
|
||
|
||
"Why don't you Judge? We could have some fun," retorted
|
||
Ingersoll. "But while you are running up one side of me and down
|
||
the other, I will run down one side of you and up the other."
|
||
|
||
This amusing anecdote, which illustrates the never-failing
|
||
humor and the lightning-like wit of Ingersoll, was related to the
|
||
author by a third gentleman who was present.
|
||
|
||
The full and exact conditions were: (1) That Ingersoll should
|
||
write an article; (2) that some one should answer it; (3) that
|
||
Ingersoll should have the Privilege of replying; (4) that one, two,
|
||
or three others might answer him; and (5) that Ingersoll should
|
||
reply. thereby closing the controversy. Accordingly, Ingersoll
|
||
wrote the first article, entitling it, Is All The Bible Inspired?
|
||
Not until afterwards did he know who was to write the second. Many
|
||
unsuccessful efforts were made by the Review to obtain a reply from
|
||
some representative Christian theologian or thinker. Among those
|
||
approached was Beecher, who, after reading the proof-sheets of
|
||
Ingersoll's article (entitled as above indicated), declined to
|
||
answer it, explaining, in substance, that, while he did not wholly
|
||
approve of Ingersoll's methods, he agreed with so much of his
|
||
thought, that an answer from him (Beecher) would be useless. He
|
||
advised the Review to secure a reply from some orthodox clergyman
|
||
or college president. Afterwards, an article was written by the
|
||
late Judge Jeremiah S. Black, of the Philadelphia bar. Ingersoll's
|
||
article and Black's reply were published together, under the title,
|
||
The Christian Religion, in the August issue of the Review, Black
|
||
having induced the management of that periodical, without
|
||
Ingersoll's consent or knowledge, to change the title of the
|
||
latter's contribution. Ingersoll's rejoinder of fifty-eight pages,
|
||
which, it is of literary interest to note, was dictated to a
|
||
stenographer in an almost incredibly short space of time, and
|
||
published practically word for word as dictated, appeared in the
|
||
November number of the Review; "and Judge Black was informed,"
|
||
wrote the editor afterwards, "that the same number of pages of the
|
||
next issue would be at his disposal," "it being deemed inadvisable
|
||
to fill "any single number of "the Review with the discussion of
|
||
the one question." "But the Judge could not be induced," continued
|
||
the editor, "to write a second article, although strongly urged to
|
||
do so." This, Ingersoll deeply regretted. "Black published his
|
||
reply in some Philadelphia paper," wrote Ingersoll, subsequently,
|
||
"claiming that he had not been fairly treated by the Review.
|
||
|
||
[NOTE: "It was one of the mistakes of Jere Black's life that
|
||
he got into that fight with the Colonel. I know Black -- he
|
||
frequently came to see me in Washington -- was a good fellow -- but
|
||
in that discussion he met, as he deserved, with the most scathing
|
||
chastisement." Walt Whitman, in With Walt Whitman in Camden, by
|
||
Horace Traubel, p. 82.]
|
||
|
||
The latter then secured a "reply" from Professor George Park
|
||
Fisher, of Yale University, but only with the express stipulation,
|
||
that Ingersoll be not permitted to rejoin.
|
||
|
||
|
||
|
||
Bank of Wisdom
|
||
Box 926, Louisville, KY 40201
|
||
57
|
||
|
||
INGERSOLL, A BIOGRAPHICAL APPRECIATION
|
||
|
||
6.
|
||
|
||
In viewing the lives of the great, we are apt to dwell with
|
||
insistence upon such occurrences as have already laid strong claim
|
||
to popular attention, while many others that, carefully considered,
|
||
disclose the real mental and moral constitution of the individual
|
||
concerned are but slightingly mentioned, if not entirely ignored.
|
||
We should commit ourselves to this error in viewing the life of
|
||
Ingersoll, if we failed to note, somewhat at length, an incident
|
||
that took place in Washington on January 8, 1882. It is doubtful
|
||
whether there is any other which more clearly reveals his innate
|
||
sympathy and tenderness; and certainly there is no other which more
|
||
clearly demonstrates his capacity for fitting expression.
|
||
|
||
A little child had suddenly died. It belonged to parents who
|
||
were far below Ingersoll "in the social scale"; but they were his
|
||
friends. So, when the people who had been invited gathered around
|
||
the open grave in the Congressional Cemetery, late in the
|
||
afternoon, he was there. The little casket rested on the trestles.
|
||
Nature had conspired with death to deepen the tragic gloom. Gray,
|
||
cold mist obscured the horizon, and hung like a lowering pall
|
||
overhead. A fine, slow rain was falling, its monotonous whisper
|
||
intensifying the painful silence -- broken only by the sobs of the
|
||
mother. A few feet from her, with bared head, stood Ingersoll. The
|
||
undertaker, approaching the latter, addressed him in tones
|
||
inaudible to others. The Great Agnostic shook his head, but
|
||
immediately inquired, "Does Mr. ------- desire it? "The undertaker
|
||
gave an affirmative nod, while from the stricken father came a look
|
||
of earnest appeal -- a look that meant far more than he knew. It
|
||
meant that the man who had led a regiment in battle, who had
|
||
irresistibly swayed the most unwieldy of political conventions, who
|
||
had captured countless juries, who had thrilled vast assemblages
|
||
with the wildest enthusiasm -- it meant that the man who was
|
||
accustomed to being the dominant figure in affairs of such
|
||
magnitude -- was now called to perform an office the delicacy of
|
||
which made it their direct antithesis. It meant, moreover, that the
|
||
man who had done more than any other individual in history to
|
||
destroy that which, to a vast majority of his fellow-countrymen at
|
||
least, was the only solace in the hour of death, was now called to
|
||
solace the heart of a mother in the darkest moment of that hour.
|
||
|
||
All heads were bowed. Ingersoll stepped quickly to the side of
|
||
the little grave, and, in a voice whose exquisite tone and cadence
|
||
can be realized by those only who were present, said: --
|
||
|
||
"My friends: I know how vain it is to gild a grief with words,
|
||
and yet I wish to take from the grave its fear. Here in this world,
|
||
where life and death are equal kings, all should be brave enough to
|
||
meet what all the dead have met. The future has been filled with
|
||
fear, stained and polluted by the heartless past. From the wondrous
|
||
tree of life the buds and blossoms fall with ripened fruit, and in
|
||
the common bed of earth, patriarchs and babes sleep side by side.
|
||
|
||
"Who should we fear that which will come to all that is? We
|
||
cannot tell, we do not know, which is the greater blessing -- life
|
||
or death. We cannot say that death is not a good. We do not know
|
||
whether the grave is the end of this life, or the door of another,
|
||
|
||
|
||
Bank of Wisdom
|
||
Box 926, Louisville, KY 40201
|
||
58
|
||
|
||
INGERSOLL, A BIOGRAPHICAL APPRECIATION
|
||
|
||
or whether the night here is not somewhere a dawn. Neither can we
|
||
tell which is the more fortunate -- the child dying in its mother's
|
||
arms, before its lips have learned to form a word, or he who
|
||
journeys all the length of life's uneven road, painfully taking the
|
||
last slow steps with staff and crutch.
|
||
|
||
"Every cradle asks us 'Whence?' and every coffin 'Whither?'
|
||
The poor barbarian, weeping above his dead, can answer these
|
||
questions just as well as the robed priest of the most authentic
|
||
creed. The tearful ignorance of the one, is as consoling as the
|
||
learned and unmeaning words of the other. No man, standing where
|
||
the horizon of a life has touched a grave, has any right to
|
||
prophesy a future filled with pain and tears.
|
||
|
||
"May be that death gives all there is of worth to life. If
|
||
those we press and strain within our arms could never die, perhaps
|
||
that love would wither from the earth. May be this common fate
|
||
treads from out the paths between our hearts the weeds of
|
||
selfishness and hate. And I had rather live and love where death is
|
||
king, than have sternal life where love is not. Another life is
|
||
nought, unless we know and love again the ones who love us here.
|
||
|
||
"They who stand with breaking hearts around this little grave,
|
||
need have no fear. The larger and the nobler faith in all that is,
|
||
and is to be, tells us that death, even at its worst, is only
|
||
perfect rest. We know that through the common wants of life -- the
|
||
needs and duties of the hour -- their grief will lessen day by day,
|
||
until at last this grave will be to them a place of rest and peace
|
||
-- almost of joy. There is for them this consolation: the dead do
|
||
not suffer. If they live again, their lives will surely be as good
|
||
as ours. We have no fear. We are all children of the same mother,
|
||
and the same fate awaits us all. We, too, have our religion, and it
|
||
is this: Help for the living -- Hope for the dead."
|
||
|
||
The irksomeness of rhetorical criticism may here be dispensed
|
||
with; but it is unavoidable to ask a question: What other orator,
|
||
ancient or modern, with one-half of Ingersoll's power in the
|
||
rostrum, could have planted on the grave of a child a flower as
|
||
delicate as this?
|
||
|
||
7.
|
||
|
||
Dr. Talmage, of Brooklyn, having preached a series of six
|
||
sermons in which he adversely reviewed some of the Great Agnostic's
|
||
|
||
lectures, Ingersoll published, in April, 1882, Six Interviews with
|
||
Robert G. Ingersoll on Six Sermons by the Rev. T. DeWitt Talmage,
|
||
D.D., To Which Is Added a Talmagian Catechism. Throughout this
|
||
exhaustive work of 430 pages, Ingersoll pursues the great divine
|
||
with kindly humor, but with logic as merciless as it is
|
||
irresistible, and concludes by ironically setting forth, "in the
|
||
form of a shorter catechism, for use in Sunday-schools, the pith
|
||
and marrow of what he [Talmage] has been pleased to say."
|
||
|
||
|
||
|
||
|
||
|
||
|
||
Bank of Wisdom
|
||
Box 926, Louisville, KY 40201
|
||
59
|
||
|
||
INGERSOLL, A BIOGRAPHICAL APPRECIATION
|
||
|
||
8.
|
||
|
||
In this year, May Thirtieth must have been to Ingersoll a day
|
||
as proud and satisfying as it was memorable and sad. It was no
|
||
informal occasion -- his was no perfunctory duty -- when, as the
|
||
oratorical choice, and the unanimously invited guest, of the Grand
|
||
Army of the Republic, he arose in the Academy of Music, New York,
|
||
to voice a nation's gratitude to a nation's dead.
|
||
|
||
The Grand Army of the Republic knew, that Ingersoll had "but
|
||
one sentiment for soldiers: Cheers for the living, tears for the
|
||
dead." They also knew, that there was "but one" man with the
|
||
intellectual amplitude, the historic grasp, the wealth of
|
||
imagination and feeling -- in short, the brain and heart -- to lay
|
||
upon the hallowed graves of the founders and defenders of the Great
|
||
Republic a fitting wreath -- Robert G. Ingersoll. But some of his
|
||
enemies, that is, some people who did not know him, sought to
|
||
prevent his being invited as the orator of the occasion. Hearing of
|
||
this, he begged the committee in charge to consider the matter well
|
||
and long. They did; and the better and longer they considered, the
|
||
more imperatively necessary seemed the following telegram to him:
|
||
|
||
"Our committee unanimously renew our invitation, and urge your
|
||
acceptance. All are enthusiastic on the subject. We want Rogers and
|
||
the sword of Bunker Hill." Ingersoll's acceptance also brought over
|
||
the wire this flash of enthusiasm: "Glory hallelujah! The day is
|
||
ours!"
|
||
|
||
The audience, which, within a few minutes after the opening of
|
||
the doors, filled every seat, both off and on the stage, was one of
|
||
the most appreciative and distinguished that had ever gathered in
|
||
the Academy, President Arthur, Secretary Folger, Attorney- General
|
||
Brewster, Senator Conkling, Generals Grant, Hancock, Aspinwall,
|
||
Butterfield, Barnum, and Porter, and Carl Schun, George William
|
||
Curtis, and many other prominent statesmen, soldiers, orators, and
|
||
publicists being present.
|
||
|
||
Received with an ardent ovation, Ingersoll sounded the very
|
||
depths of his theme, while he easily encompassed, and even
|
||
transcended, its magnificence. Upon its sublimest heights fell the
|
||
sunlight of his genius. from "the first ships whose prows were
|
||
gilded by the western sun," he painted in poetic panorama the
|
||
history of the Great Republic, until "the heavens bent above and
|
||
domed a land without a serf, a servant, or a slave." By himself and
|
||
others, his address was termed (and has since been published as) a
|
||
Declaration Day Oration. This is a misnomer. It was far more than
|
||
a mere "Decoration Day oration": it was an epic prose-poem. It was
|
||
never equaled, even by Ingersoll himself, on any similar occasion.
|
||
But its further consideration here is impossible. In the atmosphere
|
||
of biography, there is no room nor light for this angel of
|
||
eloquence to spread its golden wings.
|
||
|
||
[NOTE: The proceeds of this "oration," about $4.000, were
|
||
given to the Grand Army of the Republic, by which they were devoted
|
||
to charity and benevolence -- to disabled soldiers, their widows
|
||
and orphans, the Garfield statue-fund, etc. When remuneration was
|
||
suggested to Ingersoll, who, of course, as orator of the occasion,
|
||
|
||
|
||
Bank of Wisdom
|
||
Box 926, Louisville, KY 40201
|
||
60
|
||
|
||
INGERSOLL, A BIOGRAPHICAL APPRECIATION
|
||
|
||
had earned the receipts, he said: "I couldn't talk about dead
|
||
soldiers for money." He refused to accept even traveling expenses.]
|
||
|
||
9.
|
||
|
||
From an early date in this year (1882) until the middle of the
|
||
next, Ingersoll was the dominant figure in the most noted legal
|
||
case that has occurred in the Western Hemisphere, and probably the
|
||
most remarkable, for intricacy and magnitude, in the history of
|
||
criminal jurisprudence. Stephen W. Dorsey, formerly a United States
|
||
senator from Arkansas, his brother John W. Dorsey, Thomas J. Brady
|
||
(second assistant postmaster-general), and four others were
|
||
indicted by a grand jary, at Washington, under the Revised Statutes
|
||
of the United States, for conspiring to defraud the latter, in
|
||
connection with certain contracts and subcontracts for carrying the
|
||
mails in a number of the western states, on what were known as
|
||
"star-routes." The two trials that ensued were known as the "star-
|
||
route trials." There were over ten thousand of these star-routes.
|
||
The defendants were interested in 134 separate contracts and
|
||
subcontracts; and it was alleged that the Government had been
|
||
defrauded to the extent of nearly five million dollars. Considering
|
||
the size of this sum of public money, and the social and official
|
||
prominence of some of the defendants, I feel safe in leaving almost
|
||
wholly to the judgment and the imagination of such readers as have
|
||
no knowledge on the subject the formation of an adequate conception
|
||
of the profound and widespread interest that was manifested in the
|
||
case. Of the magnitude of its two trials, we may, perhaps,
|
||
approximately judge by the length of the records, and by the costs
|
||
involved. The former, as printed and filed in the Department of
|
||
Justice, occupy between nine and ten thousand roomy pages, --
|
||
probably the longest records in the annals of criminal procedure,
|
||
-- while the costs have been officially estimated at $1,200,000.
|
||
|
||
The first trial began on June 1st, in the Supreme Court of the
|
||
District of Columbia, Attorney-General Brewster and others
|
||
representing the Government; Ingersoll and others, the defendants.
|
||
Ingersoll was the immediate counsel for Stephen W. and John W.
|
||
Dorsey. The trial occupied nearly three and one-half months. At the
|
||
unanimous request of his legal associates in the case, Ingersoll
|
||
made the final appeal to the jury, for the defense, beginning at
|
||
noon on September 5th, and ending at noon on the 6th. As large an
|
||
audience as had been able to get within range of his voice hung
|
||
upon his every word. The jury retired on September 8th, and, on
|
||
the; 11th, after being threatened, by the presiding judge, with an
|
||
invocation of the provisions of the ancient common law in such
|
||
cases, -- namely, deprivation of food, drink, and place of sleep,
|
||
-- rendered a "mixed verdict," acquitting one of the defendants,
|
||
convicting two, and disagreeing as to the other four. Among the
|
||
latter were Ingersoll's immediate clients, Stephen W. and John W.
|
||
Dorsey. This verdict was set aside, and the first Monday in
|
||
December was fixed as the date on which to begin the second trial.
|
||
|
||
Meantime, public interest in the case was even more intense
|
||
than ever. Thousands of citizens of every grade and vocation,
|
||
including editors of influential journals, in all parts of the
|
||
country, who certainly had never perused the indictment, and who
|
||
probably had never heard or read a full page of the real testimony,
|
||
were incessantly clamoring for a verdict of guilt.
|
||
|
||
Bank of Wisdom
|
||
Box 926, Louisville, KY 40201
|
||
61
|
||
|
||
INGERSOLL, A BIOGRAPHICAL APPRECIATION
|
||
|
||
In this connection, the following extract from a subsequent
|
||
interview with Ingersoll is especially apropos: --
|
||
|
||
Question. -- In your experience as a lawyer what was the most
|
||
unique case in which you were ever engaged?
|
||
|
||
Answer. -- The Star Route trial. Every paper in the country,
|
||
but one, was against the defence, and that one was a little sheet
|
||
owned by one of the defendants. I received a note from a man living
|
||
in a little town in Ohio criticizing me for defending the accused.
|
||
In reply I wrote that I supposed he was a sensible man and that hem
|
||
of course, knew what he was talking about when he said the accused
|
||
were guilty; that the government needed just such men as he, and
|
||
that he should come to the trial at once and testify. The man wrote
|
||
back: 'Dear Colonel: I am a ---- fool.'"
|
||
|
||
In legal and governmental circles at Washington, the wildest
|
||
excitement prevailed. There were startling rumors and summary
|
||
doings on every hand.
|
||
|
||
The second trial began on December 7th and occupied over six
|
||
months. Ingersoll delivered his opening address to the jury on
|
||
December 21st, and his closing address on June 13th and 14, 1883.
|
||
On the following morning, at ten o'clock, a verdict of absolute
|
||
acquittal was rendered.
|
||
|
||
It is no exaggeration to state, that this verdict was the
|
||
greatest personal victory ever won by an American lawyer. It was so
|
||
regarded at the time. Hundreds who were present to hear it, while
|
||
apparently feeling but little anxiety for the actual defendants,
|
||
were beside themselves with joy on learning that Ingersoll, despite
|
||
the seemingly overwhelming advantage of the prosecution, had
|
||
achieved so marvelous a triumph. Indeed, even the dignity of court
|
||
was impotent to prevent an ovation to the great lawyer. And shortly
|
||
afterwards, as he rode homeward with his family, through
|
||
Pennsylvania Avenue, he was so frequently greeted by the people,
|
||
that he was finally obliged to sit with uncovered head, waving his
|
||
hands to either side, much after the manner of a conquering hero.
|
||
Telegrams of congratulation came from all parts of the country.
|
||
Callers, in an almost unbroken procession, thronged his house
|
||
during the day, and concluded their manifestations of gladness with
|
||
a serenade in the evening, when Ingersoll responded in a short
|
||
speech.
|
||
|
||
Of the matter and manner of his three addresses (to the
|
||
juries), covering as they do nearly five hundred pages, little can
|
||
or need be said. If oratory is to be judged by its immediate
|
||
effects, perhaps, after all, the members of the last "star-route"
|
||
jury, unlettered though they may have been, uttered in the
|
||
memorable words, "We find the defendants not guilty," the highest
|
||
possible praise of the addresses concerned. To point out therein
|
||
any of the countless available examples of masterful exposition; of
|
||
analysis and portrayal of human character and motive; of perfect
|
||
logic, keen wit, and flashing repartee; of scathing irony and death
|
||
dealing sarcasm; of genial humor and tender pathos -- in short, to
|
||
do more than to enumerate the weapons wielded by the supreme
|
||
intellectual gladiator in this memorable combat -- would be to
|
||
|
||
|
||
Bank of Wisdom
|
||
Box 926, Louisville, KY 40201
|
||
62
|
||
|
||
INGERSOLL, A BIOGRAPHICAL APPRECIATION
|
||
|
||
yield to a temptation that constantly besets the truly appreciative
|
||
critic of Ingersoll. It does seem pertinent, however, that many
|
||
people who, because of their superficial knowledge of him, had
|
||
doubted his depth as a counselor and advocate, departed from court
|
||
with the ineradicable conviction, that the man whom they had long
|
||
since conceded to be the most eloquent of American orators was
|
||
hardly less marvelous for his resourcefulness, his brilliancy, and
|
||
his profundity, in the law.'
|
||
|
||
Notwithstanding the verdict (on June 15, 1883) of the twelve
|
||
men who had pondered the indictment and the testimony, and who were
|
||
solemnly sworn to render a decision in accordance with the evidence
|
||
and the law, many people who are entirely void of responsibility,
|
||
and who know little of the testimony, and still less of the
|
||
evidence, continue to try the "star-route" case with resulting
|
||
verdicts of guilt!
|
||
|
||
They also charge Ingersoll with having been a hireling to one
|
||
of the "guilty" defendants, in consideration of an enormous fee.
|
||
Ingersoll received no fee whatever. As a matter of fact, he lost
|
||
not only the better part of two years' time and intellectual labor,
|
||
but many thousands of dollars in cash, through the failure of
|
||
Stephen W. Dorsey to meet various financial obligations which he
|
||
assumed during, and subsequent to, the trials, and for which
|
||
Ingersoll, by sufferance of abundant good nature, became
|
||
technically responsible. Such was his reward. --
|
||
|
||
"Time hath, my lord, a wallet at his back,
|
||
Wherein he puts alms for oblivion, --
|
||
A great-sized monster of ingratiates --
|
||
Those scraps are good deeds past; which are devoured
|
||
As fast as they are made, forgotten as soon
|
||
As done * * *."
|
||
|
||
10.
|
||
|
||
But if ingratitude, and even worse, was to be Ingersoll's
|
||
portion at the hands of one individual in his own country,
|
||
something different was preparing at the hands of another
|
||
individual, in another section of the continent. For, about the
|
||
time of the closing of the second "star-route" trial, the
|
||
distinguished explorer Prederick Schwatka, laureate of the Paris
|
||
Geographical Society, and of the Imperial Geographical Society of
|
||
Russia, etc., etc., was making his way, in command of the Alaska
|
||
Exploring Expedition, down the Unknown River. Between Van Wilczek
|
||
Valley and old Fort Selkirk, British Northwest Territory, at a
|
||
point which he thought was situated in the bed of an ancient lake,
|
||
he came upon a large chain, or cluster, of islands. These he named
|
||
"Ingersoll Islands," "after Colonel Ingersoll of Washington."
|
||
|
||
11.
|
||
|
||
On October 22d Ingersoll delivered in Lincoln Hall, in the
|
||
latter city, a speech on "Civil Rights," a great number of citizens
|
||
having met there to express their views concerning the decision of
|
||
the Supreme Court of the United States in which it is held that the
|
||
first and second sections of the Civil Rights Act are
|
||
|
||
|
||
Bank of Wisdom
|
||
Box 926, Louisville, KY 40201
|
||
63
|
||
|
||
INGERSOLL, A BIOGRAPHICAL APPRECIATION
|
||
|
||
unconstitutional. He was introduced by Frederick Douglass, as "one
|
||
that loves his fellow-men," Leigh Hunt's famous poem Abou Ben
|
||
Adhem, whom Ingersoll was held to typify, being employed by
|
||
Douglass as the medium of presenting the humanitarian, orator, and
|
||
jurist.
|
||
|
||
Thereupon Ingersoll, the legal anatomist, with the scalpel and
|
||
tweezers of logic, slowly and calmly dissected the decision before
|
||
him, weighed it in the balanced scales, pointed out what he
|
||
believed to be the false reasoning of the great tribunal, and
|
||
concluded with a characteristic denunciation of the spirit of
|
||
caste, and a nobly patriotic plea for protection and justice for
|
||
every citizen, not only abroad but at home. He demonstrated that
|
||
he, too, should be remembered as an "expounder of the
|
||
Constitution."
|
||
|
||
There was also published during this year, in the Brooklyn
|
||
Union, a lengthy interview in which Ingersoll criticized the
|
||
Brooklyn divines for their attitude on the tendencies of modern
|
||
thought.
|
||
|
||
Two lectures, Orthodoxy and Which Way? were delivered in 1884,
|
||
the last concluding with that marvelous peroration: --
|
||
|
||
"This was.
|
||
"This is.
|
||
"This shall be."
|
||
|
||
The latter has since been published as Night and Morning, with
|
||
other prose-poems and selections from his works.
|
||
|
||
Myth and Miracle was published in 1885. One of his most
|
||
forceful and charming lectures, it contains the prose-poems The
|
||
Warp and Woof and the Apostrophe of Liberty.
|
||
|
||
12.
|
||
|
||
In November of this year, for much the same reasons that had
|
||
impelled him to abandon Peoria, with a preference for Washington,
|
||
as a place of residence, Ingersoll removed to New York. If it was
|
||
natural eight years before, that he should abandon for the national
|
||
capital his muck-loved Prairie State, where he had already won the
|
||
laurel, and whose pride he had become, it was now natural that he
|
||
should abandon the national capital for the far wider and more
|
||
congenial fields of the national metropolis. Natural, to be sure;
|
||
yet, seemingly, how anomalous -- the "Great Agnostic" returning to
|
||
the place of his baptism! How far from the imagination of fifty
|
||
years before! Little was it dreamed by that mother whose "sweet,
|
||
cold face" was to keep his "heart warm through all the changing
|
||
years." Still less was it dreamed by Rev. John Ingersoll. How
|
||
distant from his thoughts, as he set out to spread the Christian
|
||
gospel in the "West," that the motherless child in his arms, born
|
||
to poverty, adversity, and all that was provincially orthodox,
|
||
would return, a half-century hence, the central figure of an epoch
|
||
of intellectual progress -- the most unique, and yet the most
|
||
lovable personality, the wisest and sanest thinker, the most
|
||
formidable controversialist, of the modern world, and the greatest
|
||
orator of all time!
|
||
|
||
Bank of Wisdom
|
||
Box 926, Louisville, KY 40201
|
||
64
|
||
|