Part 34 (1/2)

The Dutch blood of Holland and the cavalier blood of England led in his veins in fair proportion He was especially proud of the uncle, his mother's brother, the Southern adanization in Europe, who had fitted out the rebel cruisers and sent theht be, for a nobler American never lived At the close of the War of Sections Admiral Bullock had in his possession some halfthis to his own use, as without reht have done, he turned it over to the Government of the United States, and died a poor man

The inconsistencies and quarrels in which Theodore Roosevelt was now and again involved were largely temperamental His mind was of that order which is prone to believe what it wants to believe He did not take much time to think He leaped at conclusions, and from his premise his conclusion was usually sound His tastes were domestic, his pastime, when not at his books, field sports

He was not what ood co him--so that a certain self-control became second nature to him

To be sure, he had no conscientious or doctrinal scruples about a third terenial abode, had accepted the literal theory that his election in 1908 would not imply a third but a second term, and he wanted to re Jackson and Polk, ive it up We know that Grant was, and I aton, because if a third why not a fourth term? And then life tenure after the manner of the Caesars and Cromwells of history, and especially the Latin-Americans--Bolivar, Rosas and Diaz?

Away back in 1873, after a dinner, Mr Blaine took er a surroup about General Grant, who had just been reflected by an overwhel for a third ter toin the roo at the door I was bidden to enter

Withouthow it had reached me, I put the proposition to him

”Certainly,” he said, ”it is true”

The next day, in a letter to the Courier-Journal, I reduced what I had heard to writing Reading this over it seeraph, meant to qualify what I had written and to is,” I wrote, ”may sound queer to the ear of the country

They may have visited me in my dreams; they may, indeed, have cone, but nevertheless I do aver that they are buzzing about here in the minds of many very serious and not unimportant persons”

Never was a well-intentioned scribe so berated and ridiculed as I, never a siatherer so discredited Democratic and Republican newspapers vied with one another which could say crossest things and laugh loudest One sentence especially caught the newspaper risibilities of the time, and it was many a year before the phrase ”between the sherry and the chane” ceased to pursue me That any patriotic American, twice elevated to the presidency, could want a third term, could have the hardihood to seek one was inconceivable My letter was an insult to General Grant and proof of ence and restraint They la On each successive occasion of recurrence I have encountered the same criticism

Chapter the Twenty-Third

The Actor and the Journalist--The Newspaper and the State--Joseph Jefferson--His Personal and Artistic Career--Modest Character and Religious Belief

I

The journalist and the player have soht into day I have known rather inti actors ofand Charles Wyndham to Edwin Booth and Joseph Jefferson, from Charlotte Cush as stage people

During nearly fifty years my life and the life of Joseph Jefferson ran close upon parallel lines He was eleven years my senior; but after the desultory acquaintance of a ether under circue and established between us a lasting bond of affection His wife, Margaret, had died, and he was passing through Washi+ngton with the little brood of children she had left him

It made the saddest spectacle I had ever seen As I recall it after rief, of unutterable helplessness, has still a haunting power over irl baby in aredy which had co in my sympathy which drew hiht me out and we fell into the easy intercourse of established relations

I was recovering from an illness, and every day he would come and read by my bedside I had not then lost the action of one ofan end to a course of musical study I had hoped to develop into a career He was infinitely fond of music and sufficiently familiar with the old h and through, possessing a sweet nor yet an uncultivated voice--a blend between a low tenor and a high baritone--I was almost about to write a ”contralto,” it was so soft and liquid Its tones in speech retained to the last their charet them?

Early in 1861to be a war of the sections I am not a warrior I a e in bloodshed, or to take sides I have near and dear ones North and South

I a away and I shall stay away until the storm blows over It may seem to you unpatriotic, and it is, I know, unheroic I am not a hero; I am, I hope, an artist My world is the world of art, and I ion I can do noaway”

II

At thatthe chances of a peaceful adjustment and solution of the sectional controversy With the prophet instinct of the artist he knew better Though at no ti expression to party bias of any kind, his personal associations led hie of the trend of political opinion and the portent of public affairs, and I can truly say that during the fifty years that passed thereafter I never discussed any topic of current interest or hts of a lu, and at the sa His huh perennial was subdued; his wit keen and spontaneous, never acrid or wounding His speech abounded with unconscious epigraressive Cleaner speech never fell from the lips of reed between ourselves to draw a line across the salacious stories soour day; the wit must exceed the dirt; where the dirt exceeded the ould none of it