781 lines
38 KiB
Plaintext
781 lines
38 KiB
Plaintext
12 page printout, page 74 to 85
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INGERSOLL, A BIOGRAPHICAL APPRECIATION
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CHAPTER 7.
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FROM EIGHTEEN EIGHTY-NINE TO
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EIGHTEEN NINETY-TWO.
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In 1889, the Rationalists of Europe and America having
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conjointly provided for the erection of a life-size statue of
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Bruno, in the Campo dei fiori at Rome, on the spot where he was
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burned at the stake, February 17, 1600, by order of the papal
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Inquisition, Ingersoll was invited by the international committee
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to deliver the oration unveiling the memorial mentioned.
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We can imagine with what wealth of feeling, -- what triumphant
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inspiration, -- the orator of universal liberty would have risen in
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the shadow of the Vatican to pay to the memory of him whom he had
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already styled "the first real martyr" that debt of gratitude and
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historic justice which had so long been overdue; and we can imagine
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also, but with regret, how much the world of art and letters was
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the loser because of his inability to accept an invitation which,
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coming from a source so truly representative of emancipated
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thought, was to him especially pleasing.
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Of the sublime heights which he would have attained had he
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accepted, we catch a glimpse from the critical viewpoint of the
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eminent English Rationalist George Jacob Holyoake, who, in
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commenting on the great orator's loftiness and originality, said:--
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"When his subject was Bruno, upon whom many pens had exhausted
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all the terms they knew, Ingersoll's first words were: 'The night
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of the Middle Ages lasted for a thousand years. The first star that
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enriched the horizon of this universal gloom was Giordano Bruno. He
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was the herald of the dawn.'"
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But although the orator of the better age which Bruno so
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clearly foresaw, and for which he so nobly gave his life, was
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unable to pay in Rome the tribute of his gratitude, he rendered
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substantial aid at home, not only as the head of the committee
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representing the United States on the international committee, but
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as indicated in the following characteristic letter opening the
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American subscription: --
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"Law Office, Robert G. Ingersoll,
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"40 Wall Street.
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"New York,
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Feb. 8, 1889.
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T.B. Wakeman, Esq.
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Treasurer of the Bruno Monument Committee.
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"My dear Sir:
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It gives me great pleasure to include my check for one hundred
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dollars ($100).
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"I shall never be quite satisfied until there is a monument to
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Bruno higher than the dome of St. Peter's.
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"Yours very truly,
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R.G. Ingersoll."
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Bank of Wisdom
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Box 926, Louisville, KY 40201
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74
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INGERSOLL, A BIOGRAPHICAL APPRECIATION
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2.
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In 1891 he first delivered his lecture on Shakespeare. The
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several mental steps leading to this marvelous contribution to
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Shakespearean criticism are of keen interest. They are also of
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first importance, because they afford an intimate, if only a
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partial, view of the artistic and intellectual evolution of a great
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personality.
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The circumstances of Ingersoll's introduction to Shakespeare's
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"book and volume of the brain,' and the impression which the latter
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made on the prose-poet whom the future will rank as second only to
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its author, were as unusual as those of Ingersoll's introduction to
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the poetry of Burns. It should here be recalled, that, in the late
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forties or very early fifties, the works of Burns and Shakespeare
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were not to be found in every American home, -- certainly not in
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the home of every orthodox clergyman in the Prairie State. The
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works of real genius were considered hardly "safe for the young."
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"It was admitted, on all hands," says Ingersoll himself, in
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reference to the literary standards and ideals which prevailed as
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late even as 1855, "that Burns was a child of nature of whom his
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mother was ashamed and proud." "A few, not quite of orthodox,
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delighted in the mechanical monotony of Pope, and the really wicked
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-- those lost to all religious shame -- were worshipers of
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Shakespeare." Reading "between the lines," the story of Ingersoll's
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growing impatience with Pope, whom he once termed a
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"word-carpenter," and, reading the lines themselves, the story of
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Ingersoll's becoming one of the "worshipers" just mentioned, are
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best told in the following paragraph: --
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"* * * one night I stopped at a little hotel in Illinois, many
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years ago, when we were not quite civilized, when the footsteps of
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the red man were still on the prairies. While I was waiting for
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supper an old man was reading from a book, and among others who
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were listening was myself. I was filled with wonder. I had never
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heard anything like it. I was ashamed to ask him what he was
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reading: I supposed that an intelligent boy ought to know. So I
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waited, and when the little bell rang for supper I hung back and
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they went out. I picked up the book; it was Sam Johnson's edition
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of Shakespeare. The next day I bought a copy for four dollars. My
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God! more than the national debt. You talk about the present
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straits of the Treasury ! [1895] For days, for nights, for months,
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for years, I read those books, two volumes, and I commenced with
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the introduction. I haven't read that introduction for nearly fifty
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years, certainly forty-five, but I remember it still. Other writers
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are like a garden diligently planted and watered, but Shakespeare
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a forest where the oaks and elms toss their branches to the storm,
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where the pine towers, where the vine bursts into blossom at the
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foot. That book opened to me a new world, another nature. While
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Burns was the valley, here was a range of mountains with thousands
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of such valleys; while Burns was as sweet a star as ever rose into
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the horizon, here was a heaven filled with constellations. That
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book has been a source of perpetual joy to me from that day to
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this; and whenever I read Shakespeare -- if it ever happens that I
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fail to find some new beauty, some new presentation of some
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wonderful truth, or another word that bursts into blossom, I shall
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make up my mind that my mental faculties are failing, that it is
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not the fault of the book."
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Bank of Wisdom
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Box 926, Louisville, KY 40201
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75
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INGERSOLL, A BIOGRAPHICAL APPRECIATION
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A gentleman who enjoyed the intimate acquaintance of many of
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Ingersoll's foremost contemporaries once told the author, among
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other things concerning Ingersoll: "He could quote more
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'Shakespeare' than any other person whom I have ever known." Actors
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like Edwin Booth, Laurence Barrett, and Joseph Jefferson went far
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beyond this, they having repeatedly remarked, for instance, that
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Ingersoll would have made 'a wonderful Hamlet or Lear.' And it was
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because of the truths expressed in such comments -- it was because
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the "myriad-minded" had penetrated to, and wakened a response in,
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the innermost depths of Ingersoll's heart and soul -- that, for
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many years, the latter felt an almost unconquerable reluctance to
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attempt to do justice, in a single lecture, to a theme
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sympathetically so exacting, and intellectually so magnificent.
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Just how much of its debt of gratitude for Shakespeare the great
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republic of English letters owes to the little republic which
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consisted of wife, daughters and other relatives and friends, and
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of which Ingersoll was the central figure, for the latter's final
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success tn overcoming, in a measure, this reluctance, we cannot
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say. But it is known to have been at least in accord with their
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suggestion, -- the suggestion of his immediate family, in
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particular, -- that he made written notes of his casual thoughts
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observations, and impressions of the subject concerned, with a view
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of elaborating them as a lecture. And when, after many years of
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contemplation, the possessor of the most eloquent and felicitous
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tongue that has expressed thoughts in English since April 23, 1616,
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stepped upon the platform, the same reluctance, if less intense,
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still rose in his consciousness of the unattainable grandeur of his
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subject; and he was impelled to say: --
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"Shakespeare is too great a theme. I feel as though
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endeavoring to grasp a globe so large that the hand obtains no
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hold. He who would worthily speak of the great dramatist should be
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inspired by 'a muse of fire that should ascend the brightest heaven
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of invention' -- he should have 'a kingdom for a stage, and
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monarchs to behold the swelling scene.'"
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Concerning the production of which this extract is a part, and
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from which I shall quote in a later chapter, it can only he added
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here that Ingersoll scornfully rejected the Baconian theory and
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placed Shakespeare at the artistic and intellectual summit of the
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human race.
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3.
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During this year, the Davis will case, in which Ingersoll had
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been retained as counsel for the contestants, and which came to a
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final trial at Butte, Mont., in September, received a considerable
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share of his attention. This fact, however, despite the financial
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importance of the case, and its intense interest, would have no
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special claim to attention here did it not afford further evidence
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of his versatility and his oratorical genius.
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The opposing counsel, Senator Sanders, begged the jury, in
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effect, to beware of Ingersoll, whose oratory fittingly transcended
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that of Greece in the time of Alexander, and who was famed for his
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eloquence over two continents and in the islands of the sea. "The
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matchless eloquence of Ingersoll! "was the graphic exclamation of
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Bank of Wisdom
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Box 926, Louisville, KY 40201
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76
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INGERSOLL, A BIOGRAPHICAL APPRECIATION
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one of the members of the press who had heard the former's address
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to the Jury; and he continued: "Where will one look for the like of
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it? What other man living has the faculty of blending wit and
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humor, pathos and fact and logic with such exquisite grace, or with
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such impressive force? * * * To a modern audience, at least,
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Demosthenes on the Crown would seem a pretty poor sort of affair by
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the side of Ingersoll on the Davis will."
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But the address is even more remarkable, it seems to me, as
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evidence of Ingersoll's versatility. Indeed, those who read it will
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be slow in believing that its author was the same Ingersoll who has
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thus far appeared in these pages. Its frigid deductions; its
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astute, sleuth-like discovery and analysis of motive, and
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corresponding synthesis of conduct; its confutations and
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confoundings of chemical and chirographical experts; its majestic
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rise on the ladder of logic, from the foundation of fact to the
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dome of conclusion, using cause and effect for rounds -- these will
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hang heavy on our credulity if we are to believe that they are of
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the same soul that pictured on a sightless canvas the grandeur and
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glory, the heroism, the cruelty, the despairing love, and the
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pathos of war -- the same soul that burst into song at the
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birthplace of Burns, and arched with a radiance that can never fail
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nor fade the grave of a little child.
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In this case, which involved the disposition of many millions
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of dollars, it was sought by the counsel for the proponent, John A.
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Davis, to show, among other things, that a certain will was
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genuine; that it was written by Job Davis, who was known and
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acknowledged to have been a good penman, a correct speller, an
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excellent scholar. Ingersoll, counsel for the contestants, believed
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and sought to show, on the other hand, that the will in question
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was not genuine, was not written by Job Davis, but was forged by
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James R. Eddy, who was known and acknowledged to be a poor penman,
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an incorrect speller, an ignorant man.
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Referring to the proponent's testimony that the will was
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written by Job Davis, Ingersoll said: --
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"There is this beautiful peculiarity in nature -- a lie never
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fits a fact, never. You only fit a lie with another lie, made for
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the express purpose, because you can change a lie but you can't
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change a fact, and after a while the time comes when the last lie
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you tell has to be fitted to a fact, and right there is a bad
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joint; consequently you must test the statements of people who say
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they saw, not by what they say but by other facts, by the
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surroundings, by what are called probabilities; by the naturalness
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of the statement."
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As we read the following, we are apt to forget that we are
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listening to one of the profoundest of logicians, and to fancy
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ourselves back at one of the old-time "spelling-bees": --
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"Now, the next question is, was Job Davis a good speller? Let
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us be honest about it. How delighted they would have been to show
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that he was an ignorant booby. But their witnesses and our
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witnesses both swear that he was the best speller in the
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neighborhood; and when they brought men from other communities to
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Bank of Wisdom
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Box 926, Louisville, KY 40201
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77
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INGERSOLL, A BIOGRAPHICAL APPRECIATION
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a spelling match, after all had fallen on the field, after the
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floor was covered with dead and wounded, Job Davis stood proudly
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up, not having missed a word."
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After making many other telling references to the fact that
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the will contained every evidence of ignorant authorship, he
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continued: --
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"There are twenty words misspelled in this short will, and the
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most common words, some of them, in the English language. Now, I
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say that these misspelled words are twenty witnesses -- twenty
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witnesses that tell the truth without being on their oath, and that
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you cannot mix by cross-examination. Twenty witnesses! Every
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misspelled word holds up its maimed and mutilated hand and swears
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that Job Davis did not write that will -- every one. Suppose
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witnesses had sworn that Judge Woolworth wrote this will. How many
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Salt Creekers do you think it would take to convince you that he
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went around spelling sheet 'sheat'?"
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Here Judge Woolworth, seeking to mitigate the orthographic
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crime, interrupted with: --
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"I have done worse than that a great many times."
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Whereupon Ingersoll, as quick as light, retorted: --
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"You have acted worse than that, but you have never spelled
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worse than that."
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No further witty interruptions of his address were attempted.
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Among the numerous misspellings and chirographic mistakes,
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mistakes in punctuation, peculiarities and oddities, which tended
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to show that the will was not written by Job Davis, but by James R.
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Eddy, Ingersoll found the word "give" spelled "guive," and he said:
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"We have shown that Eddy was the poorest speller in the
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business. Whenever they went to a spelling-match, at the first fire
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he dropped; never outlived, I think, the first volley. And one man
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by the name of Sharp distinctly recollects that they gave out a
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sentence to be spelled: 'Give alms to the poor,' and Eddy had to
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spell the first word, give; and he lugged in his 'u' with both ears
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-- 'guive,' and he dropped dead the first fire. The man remembers
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it because it is such a curious spelling of give; and if I had
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heard anybody spell it with a 'u' when I was six years old it would
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linger in my memory still."
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There is in the address another excellent example of
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Ingersoll's acuteness, and of his method of reasoning from cause to
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effect. Endeavoring to show that a Mr. Sconce signed the will after
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some pinholes had been made in it, Ingersoll said: --
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"There is a thing about this will which, to my mind, is a
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demonstration. * * * I find, and so do you find it in the second
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initial of Sconce, in the letter 'C.' There are two punctures, and
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you will find that exactly where the punctures are there is a
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little spatter in the ink -- a disturbance of the line, in the
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Bank of Wisdom
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Box 926, Louisville, KY 40201
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78
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INGERSOLL, A BIOGRAPHICAL APPRECIATION
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capital first; in the small 'c' there is another puncture and
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another disturbance of the line. Professor Elwell says that those
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holes were made afterwards. Let's see. There is a hole, and there
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is a splatter and a change of the line. There is another hole and
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there is another change. There is another hole and there is yet
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another change. What is natural? What is reasonable? What is
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probable? Is it that the hole, being there, interrupted the pen,
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and accounts for the diversion of the line, and for the splatter.
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That is natural, isn't it? but they take the unnatural side. They
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say that these holes were made after the writing. Would it not be
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a miracle that just three holes should happen to strike just the
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three places where there had been a division of the line and a
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little spatter of the ink? Take up your table of logarithms and
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figure away until you are blind, and such an accident could not
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happen in as many thousand, billion, trillion, quintillion years as
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you can express by figures."
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And again the same qualities, tinctured with wit: --
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"Professor Elwell accounts for all the dirt on this will by
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perspiration, all on one side and made by the thumb, and although
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there were four fingers under it at the same time, the fingers were
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so contrary they wouldn't perspire. This left the thumb to do all
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the sweating. I need not call him a professor of perspiration, for
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that throws no light on the subject * * *."
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The last sentence is typical of Ingersoll in forensic
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procedure. He excluded all "that throws no light on the subject."
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He could afford to do this. Ingersoll the lawyer believed that it
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was a lawyer's duty, whether prosecuting or defending, not to abuse
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another lawyer, but to enlighten both the court and the jury upon
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the testimony, just as Ingersoll the rationalistic reformer
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believed that it was his duty to enlighten the great jury of the
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public upon the testimony presented by theology and science. In
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this very case, he had said: --
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"Now, let us be honest about this matter -- let us be fair. It
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is not a personal quarrel between lawyers. I never quarrel with
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anybody; my philosophy being that everybody does as he must, and if
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he is in bad luck and does wrong, why, let us pity him, and if we
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happen to have good luck, and take the path where roses bloom, why,
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let us be joyful. That is my doctrine; no need of fighting about
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these little things. They are all over in a little while anyway."
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And they were, even with the great soul who had thus spoken;
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for this was on September 5, 1891.
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Although the jury failed to agree, thus compromising the case,
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Ingersoll left the scene of forensic battle with the verdict of the
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people in his favor, and without compromising with his conscience;
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and this was worth more to him than complete victory in the Davis
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will case, with the Davis millions added.
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He was in Helena during the early part of the preceding
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February, when a committee of the state legislature waited upon and
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informed him that Hon. Aaron C. Witter, the recently elected
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speaker of the House, and a representative from Beaverhead County,
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Bank of Wisdom
|
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Box 926, Louisville, KY 40201
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79
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INGERSOLL, A BIOGRAPHICAL APPRECIATION
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had died, leaving penniless two little girls, who would have been
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in good circumstances but for their parents' charity to others. The
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committee requested Ingersoll to lecture for the benefit of the two
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orphans. He responded with that heartiness which had already passed
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into tradition.' The repetition of Shakespeare netted $1,165,
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Ingersoll purchasing a number of tickets for his own lecture.
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The Helena Harold of February 7, 1891, contained this
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editorial comment: "'The greatest of the human race,' says Colonel
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Ingersoll of the immortal Shakespeare. 'A greater than Shakespeare
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is his panegyrist,' says a citizen who heard the Ingersoll lecture
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last night."
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4.
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During an interview which was published in The Sunday Union,
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of New Haven. Conn., on April 10, 1881, Ingersoll was asked this
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question: --
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"Is it a fact that there are thousands of clergymen in the
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country whom you would fear to meet in fair debate?"
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He replied, among other things: --
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"No; the fact is I would like to meet them all in one."
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A Christian Sermon by Ingersoll, attacking, in writing, the
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Christian doctrine of eternal punishment. and indorsing the human,
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natural, joyful side of Christmas, which he declared was borrowed
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from the pagan world, was published in the New York Evening
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Telegram of December 19, 1891. This Sermon of less than five
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hundred words seemed to have fully as great effect upon the
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opposite rank and file of the church militant as The Crisis, by
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Thomas Paine, had had upon the latter's own side among the
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disheartened patriots of Washington's army. While The Crisis was
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read, under the orders of Washington, at many a patriot campfire,
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there is no record of its having been so read at the camp-fires of
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the enemy. Not so with A Christmas Sermon. This was attacked with
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great violence by the New York Christian Advocate, the editor of
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which called upon the public to boycott the Evening Telegram. In
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doing this, it was necessary for the Advocate to republish at least
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the substance of the Sermon which, consequently, was read beside
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thousands of Christian hearth-fires that it never would have
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reached through the medium of the Telegram. The latter, stung by
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such effrontery, -- by such a travesty of the freedom of the press,
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-- promptly dared the Advocate to do its worst, and published, at
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the same time, an answer from Ingersoll -- an answer which, again
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like Paine's Crisis, "echoed throughout America."
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"The excitement produced by the resulting battle between the
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brilliant orator and the distinguished champions of Christianity
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||
who undertook to silence him has not been equalled in the history
|
||
of modern religious controversy. Thousands of newspapers, hundreds
|
||
of pulpits, and scores of societies have taken up the challenge to
|
||
Christianity thrown down by Colonel Ingersoll." Thus wrote one who
|
||
had followed the controversy from day to day. The clashing of
|
||
theological arms continued until after the middle of February,
|
||
|
||
|
||
Bank of Wisdom
|
||
Box 926, Louisville, KY 40201
|
||
80
|
||
|
||
INGERSOLL, A BIOGRAPHICAL APPRECIATION
|
||
|
||
venturesome knights of all the principal Christian creeds, and even
|
||
Buddhists, entering the arena. Before the close of this conflict,
|
||
five papers were called forth from the Great Agnostic, some of them
|
||
though lengthy, being remarkable for cogency and conciseness, as he
|
||
was obliged to conjoin in a single paper his replies to many
|
||
participants. At last, Ingersoll was indebted to the clergy. They
|
||
had helped him to realize his ideal of a debate as expressed ten
|
||
years before. He had met them "all in one"; and he was content to
|
||
have public intelligence determine the result.
|
||
|
||
5.
|
||
|
||
Although Ingersoll was far from inactive, in either a literary
|
||
or an oratorical way, during the remainder of 1892, and although he
|
||
expressed many profound, lofty, and beautiful thoughts a single
|
||
production of the period mentioned, and that an oratorical
|
||
production, arrests our attention here. It does so, not because it
|
||
chances to be withal the supreme creation of the year, nor yet
|
||
because it contains passages that are, perhaps, equal to those of
|
||
his finer utterances of any other year, but because the nature of
|
||
its subject-matter demands for it a place in an adequate
|
||
biographical sketch.
|
||
|
||
And here let me bring into the already crowed vista of these
|
||
pages another colossus in whom, it seems to me, every truly
|
||
appreciative Ingersollian, at least, should find much to admire and
|
||
love. Walt Whitman, unfathomable and unclassifiable mystic though
|
||
he was, possessed in generous measure many of the qualities that
|
||
have rendered the name of Ingersoll an inspiration and a precious
|
||
memory to millions of his fellows. Certainly none of the wide
|
||
dissimilarities often existing between the great could account for
|
||
the inseverable bond that united the hearts of the "Great Agnostic"
|
||
and the "Good Grey Poet." Nor could their mutual affection scarcely
|
||
be explained on the ground of intellectual or logical similitude.
|
||
The truth is, that each admired and loved the other, not so much
|
||
for his genius, however highly that was prized, but primarily --
|
||
chiefly -- for his manhood. Their affinity, although undoubtedly
|
||
both artistic and intellectual, was yet far more ethical in
|
||
character -- humanitarian, in the widest, noblest sense.
|
||
|
||
To Whitman, Ingersoll was not only the ideal orator, but (to
|
||
quote Whitman's own words) "a man whose importance to the time
|
||
could not be over-figured: not literal importance, not
|
||
argumentative importance, not anti-theological-Republican-party
|
||
importance: but spiritual importance -- importance as a force, as
|
||
consuming energy -- a fiery blast for the new virtues, which are
|
||
only the old virtues done over for honest use again." And in
|
||
reference to the several great men who had manifested their loyalty
|
||
to him in his unique position as a poet, Whitman spoke of Ingersoll
|
||
as one of his best victories, since he was "one of the most
|
||
magnetically spontaneous men on the planet." "He is far, far deeper
|
||
than he is supposed to be, even by radicals," remarked the poet,
|
||
elsewhere; and he continued: "We get lots of deep-sea fruit out of
|
||
him." And again: "America don't know to-day how proud she ought to
|
||
be of Ingersoll."
|
||
|
||
|
||
|
||
|
||
Bank of Wisdom
|
||
Box 926, Louisville, KY 40201
|
||
81
|
||
|
||
INGERSOLL, A BIOGRAPHICAL APPRECIATION
|
||
|
||
To the latter, likewise, Whitman was not merely an iconoclast
|
||
in art and intellect, but a real radical, -- a genuine man, -- the
|
||
embodiment of a great ethical force. He was not simply a great
|
||
poet: he was the poet of individuality, of liberty, of democracy --
|
||
the master-singer of the Great Republic. His astronomic scope; his
|
||
dynamic power and limitless passion; his boundless charity,
|
||
sympathy and brotherly love; his emotion-born rhythms never
|
||
measured, but charged with mighty harmonies that lave the human
|
||
soul as do the murmurous and inconstant billows the lone rocks of
|
||
some desolate shore; his majestic poise and bearing; his scorn for
|
||
the "literary Lilliputians "; and even his iconoclastic forms and
|
||
methods in poetic art, Ingersoll lovingly praised and ardently
|
||
championed.
|
||
|
||
But, unreservedly loyal as was the latter in all this, he was
|
||
even more steadfast in the far less intellectually exacting office
|
||
of "counselor and friend." During those many years when Whitman and
|
||
death "were near neighbors," Ingersoll, still buoyant with health
|
||
and life, was to the venerable poet as an attentive and
|
||
affectionate son. If in any hour of need the orator could not be
|
||
near to sustain and reassure with his magnetic presence the aged
|
||
poet, some inimitable word of love and cheer would come in stead.
|
||
When, for example, on May 31, 1889, Camden paid its "compliment" to
|
||
him who was known and loved of all, -- however high, however low,
|
||
-- Ingersoll telegraphed from New York: "Am confined to my house by
|
||
illness, and regret that I can't be with you to-day. Give my more
|
||
than regards to Walt Whitman, who has won such a splendid victory
|
||
over the 'granitic pudding-heads' of the world. He is a genuine
|
||
continental American." Not only the poet himself, but his friends,
|
||
fared far better on the corresponding date of the next year, -- his
|
||
seventy-first birthday; for "Ingersoll got over" and, at a dinner
|
||
at Reisser's, in Philadelphia, "impromptued across the table to
|
||
Whitman for fifty-five minutes in a speech which Whitman thought
|
||
the most consummate piece of oratory he had ever enjoyed."
|
||
|
||
[NOTE: "Afterwards, sitting opposite Whitman, he (Ingersoll)
|
||
held a long discussion with him on immortality, the orator finding
|
||
no evidence for it, and the poet asserting it with a tenacious
|
||
instinct. Reporters scribbling shorthand notes while the two
|
||
celebrities debated."]
|
||
|
||
But this oratorical standard of the "Good Grey Poet" was not
|
||
long to endure; for, on October 21st, less than five months later,
|
||
he was to hear the same orator with a far wider scope, and under
|
||
more inspiring conditions, -- conditions which, moreover, would
|
||
again make him, of all the eager listeners, the most deeply
|
||
concerned.
|
||
|
||
For, although imbued with respect, and even the tenderest
|
||
reverence, for the hope of recompense and recognition for all in
|
||
another world, Ingersoll believed that the individual's qualities
|
||
and achievements, and especially those of genius, should be
|
||
recognized in this. "Let us put wreaths on the brows of the
|
||
living," he would say. This he resolved to do in the case of
|
||
Whitman. He would lecture in Philadelphia, and, incidentally
|
||
applying the principle of mercenary benevolence, which he had found
|
||
to be so admirably practical elsewhere, he would, with the
|
||
|
||
|
||
Bank of Wisdom
|
||
Box 926, Louisville, KY 40201
|
||
82
|
||
|
||
INGERSOLL, A BIOGRAPHICAL APPRECIATION
|
||
|
||
inevitably generous proceeds, help to smooth the remaining way for
|
||
him who had wiped the death-damp from the unknown soldier's brow,
|
||
and breathed a threnody worthy of the martyred Lincoln. But when
|
||
the Great Agnostic applied, in the City of Brotherly Love, for the
|
||
use of the most commodious (and therefore most suitable) place for
|
||
the purpose, the Broad Street Academy-Hall, the theological
|
||
prejudice of its management was matched with their pity for the
|
||
poet who had long since reached the stage "where palsy shakes a
|
||
few, sad, last grey hairs"; and Ingersoll was scornfully refused.
|
||
|
||
[NOTE: "Ingersoll never did anything but good-naturedly refer
|
||
to this event. Several years later I mentioned to him the story
|
||
current here, to the effect that Alfred Baker had had some
|
||
superstition in connection with a terrific storm which arose during
|
||
the evening of Ingersoll's last lecture in the academy. In writing
|
||
me, Ingersoll handled the matter humorously, as was his practice:
|
||
'I am not surprised at the reason Baker had for shutting me out of
|
||
the Academy. Superstition has nothing to do with common sense. Even
|
||
Sencea, the philosopher, talked of several kinds of thunder --
|
||
among others the thunder of warning. So you see that Rome and
|
||
Philadelphia are on a par.' And concluding the letter, he said:
|
||
'May you live long and prosper, and may you at last civilize the
|
||
directors of the Academy of Music.'"]
|
||
|
||
The use of Horticultural Hall was permitted, however; and
|
||
Ingersoll's "Testimonial to Walt Whitman" enabled the latter to
|
||
realize nearly nine hundred dollars.
|
||
|
||
[NOTE: "The poet had been wheeled on the stage in an invalid's
|
||
chair, and at the conclusion of Ingersoll's fervid oratory the bard
|
||
said a few words of thanks to the audience. Then he was wheeled
|
||
back to a half-lighted hotel dining-room, where he sat late with
|
||
Ingersoll, munching a little bread dipped in champagne and talking
|
||
about Death. He had never been more picturesque." -- Walt Whitman:
|
||
His Life and Work. By Bliss Perry.]
|
||
|
||
But the insignificance of this or any other sum, in comparison
|
||
with the rest that the testimonial enabled him to realize, was
|
||
probably never known to any one else than Whitman. For, to be
|
||
appreciated by even the unlettered would have been a pleasure; to
|
||
be appreciated by the literary mediocrities would have been
|
||
satisfaction; but to be analyzed, understood, accepted,
|
||
interpreted, justified, and finally canonized, by genius itself,
|
||
must have been paradise. And all this, in his lengthy address
|
||
entitled Liberty in Literature, Ingersoll surely did with
|
||
consummate mastery. He touched the secret, not only of Whitman's
|
||
poetry, but of all poetry. Indeed, those will do but meager justice
|
||
to Ingersoll's aesthetic knowledge and critical power who fail to
|
||
examine with care the laurel-wreath of eloquence which he so
|
||
lovingly placed upon the brow of the aged author of Leaves of
|
||
Grass."
|
||
|
||
The evening of the last meeting between Ingersoll and
|
||
Whitman," write the latter's biographers, "was a sad one. * * *
|
||
While Ingersoll was outwardly cheerful he realized that Whitman's
|
||
stream of life ran low. But the two big men had their talk out and
|
||
parted like lovers who were resigned to events."
|
||
|
||
|
||
Bank of Wisdom
|
||
Box 926, Louisville, KY 40201
|
||
83
|
||
|
||
INGERSOLL, A BIOGRAPHICAL APPRECIATION
|
||
|
||
Some important affairs of Ingersoll's ever-crowded life
|
||
required his presence, near the end of March, far away in Toronto,
|
||
Canada; and it was there that the electric current, which has done
|
||
so much to consummate the living death of modern poets, brought to
|
||
him the news of the actual death of Walt Whitman.
|
||
|
||
So when the former reached the little cottage in Mickle
|
||
Street, Camden, on March 30th, he found that the hour was growing
|
||
late; that the "common folk" whom Whitman had loved, and who loved
|
||
in turn, -- now even more than in life, -- the soldier-nurse and
|
||
singer of "Chants Democratic," had already been and departed: there
|
||
were cheap flowers, moist with dearer tears, and tears alone that
|
||
were dearer still, on the plain oak casket. But thousands of the
|
||
more cultured had gathered out in Harleigh Cemetery, where Whitman,
|
||
in life, had wished to rest in death; and there, in the presence of
|
||
those who would perhaps more clearly understand, if they did not
|
||
more keenly mourn and sympathize, the great orator might fulfil the
|
||
last sad office, -- the last sad promise, -- of a deep and sacred
|
||
friendship. For it was the expressed wish of Whitman, that
|
||
Ingersoll, who, as we have seen, had already placed a wreath' on
|
||
the brow of the living,' should place the wreath on the brow of the
|
||
dead.
|
||
|
||
How gracefully did the orator's first words blend the candor
|
||
of his lifelong philosophy with his admiration for the silent poet!
|
||
|
||
"My Friends: Again we, in the mystery of life, are brought
|
||
face to face with the mystery of Death. A great man, a great
|
||
American, the most eminent citizen of this Republic, lies dead
|
||
before us, and we have met to pay a tribute to his greatness and
|
||
his worth."
|
||
|
||
It would be obviously inexpedient to present here the whole of
|
||
this memorable tribute. We can only examine particular passages as
|
||
we proceed. In so doing, let us see if any reader will fail to
|
||
pause in silent awe and admiration, as before a painting by Angelo,
|
||
at this portrait of the author of Leaves of Grass: --
|
||
|
||
"He was built on a broad and splendid plan -- ample, without
|
||
appearing to have limitations -- passing easily for a brother of
|
||
mountains and seas and constellations; caring nothing for the
|
||
little maps and charts with which timid pilots hug the shore, but
|
||
giving himself freely with recklessness of genius to winds and
|
||
waves and tides; caring for nothing as long as the stars were above
|
||
him. He walked among men, among writers, among verbal varnished and
|
||
veneerers, among literary milliners and tailors, with the
|
||
unconscious majesty of an antique god."
|
||
|
||
He was the poet of life and love, -- the poet of the natural.
|
||
"He was not only the poet of democracy, not only the poet of the
|
||
Great Republic, but he was the poet of the human race." And,
|
||
finally, "he was the poet of Death." But "he was, above all things,
|
||
a man; and above genius, above all the snow-capped peaks of
|
||
intelligence, above all art, rises the true man."
|
||
|
||
Conscious of Whitman's imperfections and limitations,
|
||
acknowledging the artistic and intellectual defects and
|
||
|
||
|
||
Bank of Wisdom
|
||
Box 926, Louisville, KY 40201
|
||
84
|
||
|
||
INGERSOLL, A BIOGRAPHICAL APPRECIATION
|
||
|
||
deficiencies of the "Good Grey Poet," Ingersoll yet had the poetic
|
||
instinct, insight, and understanding, -- the mental amplitude, --
|
||
to declare of him: --
|
||
|
||
"He has uttered more supreme words than any writer of our
|
||
century, possibly of almost any other"
|
||
|
||
And: --
|
||
|
||
"He wrote a liturgy for mankind; he wrote a great and splendid
|
||
psalm of life, and he gave to us the gospel of humanity -- the
|
||
greatest gospel that can be preached."
|
||
|
||
Of the poet's serenity at the approach of death, he said: --
|
||
|
||
"He never lost his hope. When the mists filled the valleys, he
|
||
looked upon the mountain tops, and when the mountains in darkness
|
||
disappeared, he fixed his gaze upon the stars.
|
||
|
||
"In his brain were the blessed memories of the day, and in his
|
||
heart were mingled the dawn and dusk of life.
|
||
|
||
"He was not afraid; he was cheerful every moment. The laughing
|
||
nymphs of day did not desert him. They remained that they might
|
||
clasp the hands and greet with smiles the veiled and silent sisters
|
||
of the night. And when they did come. Walt Whitman stretched his
|
||
hand to them. On one side were the nymphs of the day, and on the
|
||
other the silent sisters of the night, and so, hand in hand,
|
||
between smiles and tears, he reached his journey's end.
|
||
|
||
"From the frontier of life, from the western wave-kissed
|
||
shore, he sent us messages of content and hope, and these messages
|
||
seem now like strains of music blown by the 'Mystic Trumpter' from
|
||
Death's pale realm."
|
||
|
||
After listening to this deep and soulful melody, this almost
|
||
lyrical sweetness, how can we but declare, as did Keats in the
|
||
summer moonlight, -- the fragrant air tremulous with the song of
|
||
the nightingale: "Now more than ever seems it rich to die"?
|
||
|
||
And yet Ingersoll, adding still further from the depths of
|
||
affection, of pathos, -- of beauty, -- terms his tribute a "little
|
||
wreath": --
|
||
|
||
"And so I lay this little wreath upon this great man's tomb.
|
||
I loved him living, and I love him still."
|
||
|
||
It may be a little wreath. Surely Ingersoll must have known.
|
||
But who, I ask, shall garland the tomb of him who wove it?
|
||
|
||
|
||
|
||
**** ****
|
||
|
||
Reproducible Electronic Publishing can defeat censorship.
|
||
|
||
**** ****
|
||
|
||
|
||
Bank of Wisdom
|
||
Box 926, Louisville, KY 40201
|
||
85
|
||
|