Modern Eloquence Volume Iii Part 31

And you must set yourselves off against the other elements of population in this country. You know that we have received very many elements which have nothing of the Puritan about them, which have nothing of New England about them; and that the chief characteristic of these people is that they have broken all their traditions. The reason that most foreigners come to this country is in order to break their traditions, to drop them. They come to this country because these traditions bind them to an order of society which they will no longer endure, and they come to be quit of them. You yourselves will bear me witness that these men, some of them, stood us in good stead upon a very recent occasion: in last November. [Applause. "Hear! Hear!"] We should not at all minimize the vote of the foreign-born population as against the vote of some of the native-born population on the question of silver and gold.

But you will observe that there are some things that it would be supposed would belong to any tradition. One would suppose it would belong to any tradition that it was better to earn a dollar that did not depreciate, and these men have simply shown that there are some common-sense elements which are international and not national.

One of the particulars in which we are drawn away from our traditions is in respect to the make-up and government of society, and it is in that respect we should retrace our steps and preserve our traditions; because we are suffering ourselves to drift away from the old standards, and we say, with a shrug of the shoulders, that we are not responsible for it; that we have not changed the age, though the age has changed us. We feel very much as the Scotchman did who entered the fish market. His dog, being inquisitive, investigated a basket of lobsters, and while he was nosing about incautiously one of the lobsters got hold of his tail, whereupon he went down the street with the lobster as a pendant. Says the man, "Whustle to your dog, mon." "Nay, nay, mon," quoth the Scotchman, "You whustle for your lobster." We are very much in the same position with reference to the age; we say, whistle to the age; we cannot make it let go; we have got to run. We feel very much like the little boy in the asylum, standing by the window, forbidden to go out.

He became contemplative, and said, "If G.o.d were dead and there were not any rain, what fun orphan boys would have." We feel very much that way about these New England traditions. If G.o.d were only dead; if it didn't rain; if the times were only good, what times we would have.

The present world is not recognizable when put side by side with the world into which the Puritan came. I am not here to urge a return to the Puritan life; but have you forgotten that the Puritans came into a new world? The conditions under which they came were unprecedented conditions to them. But did they forget the principles on which they acted because the conditions were unprecedented? Did they not discover new applications for old principles? Are we to be daunted, therefore, because the conditions are new? Will not old principles be adaptable to new conditions, and is it not our business to adapt them to new conditions? Have we lost the old principle and the old spirit? Are we a degenerate people? We certainly must admit ourselves to be so if we do not follow the old principles in the new world, for that is what the Puritans did.

Let me say a very practical word. What is the matter now? The matter is, conceal it as we may, gloss it over as we please, that the currency is in a sad state of unsuitability to the condition of the country. That is the fact of the matter; n.o.body can deny that; but what are we going to do? We are going to have a new tariff. I have nothing to say with regard to the policy of the tariff, one way or the other. We have had tariffs, have we not, every few years, ever since we were born; and has not the farmer become discontented under these conditions? It was the effort to remedy them that produced the silver movement. A new tariff may produce certain economic conditions; I do not care a peppercorn whether it does or not, but this is a thing which we have been tinkering and d.i.c.kering with time out of mind, and in spite of the tinkering and d.i.c.kering this situation has arisen. Are we going to cure it by more tinkering? We are not going to touch it in this way. Now, what are we going to do? It is neither here nor there whether I am a protectionist, or for a tariff for revenue, or whatever you choose to call me. The amount you collect in currency for imports is not going to make any difference. The right thing to do is to apply old principles to a new condition and get out of that new condition something that will effect a practical remedy. I do not pretend to be a doctor with a nostrum. I have no pill against an earthquake. I do not know how this thing is going to be done, but it is not going to be done by having stomachs easily turned by the truth; it is not going to be done by merely blinking the situation. If we blink the situation I hope we shall have no more celebrations in which we talk about our Puritan ancestors, because they did not blink the situation, and it is easy to eat and be happy and proud. A large number of persons may have square meals by having a properly adjusted currency.

We are very much in the condition described by the reporter who was describing the murder of a certain gentleman. He said that the murderer entered the house, and gave a graphic description of the whole thing. He said that fortunately the gentleman had put his valuables in the safe deposit and lost only his life. We are in danger of being equally wise.

We are in danger of managing our policy so that our property will be put in safe deposit and we will lose only our lives. We will make all the immediate conditions of the nation perfectly safe and lose only the life of the nation. This is not a joke, this is a very serious situation. I should feel ashamed to stand here and not say that this is a subject which deserves your serious consideration and ought to keep some of you awake to-night. This is not a simple gratulatory occasion, this is a place where public duty should be realized and public purposes formed, because public purpose is a thing for which our Puritan ancestors stood, yours and mine. If this race should ever lose that capacity, if it should ever lose the sense of dignity in this regard, we should lose the great traditions of which we pretend to be proud. [Applause.]

JOHN WINSLOW

THE FIRST THANKSGIVING DAY

[Speech of John Winslow, in the capacity of presiding officer, at the eighth annual dinner of the New England Society in the City of Brooklyn, December 21, 1887.]

GENTLEMEN OF THE NEW ENGLAND SOCIETY OF THE CITY OF BROOKLYN, GUESTS AND FRIENDS:--This is the eighth anniversary of our Society and the two hundred and sixty-seventh of the landing of the Pilgrim Fathers. It will please you all to learn of the continued growth and prosperity of our Society. There is in our treasury the sum of $14,506.21, and we have no debts. [Applause.] This shows an increase of $1,266.26 over last year. As occasion requires this money is used for charitable purposes and in other useful ways, as provided by our by-laws. Such a gathering as we have here to-night is an inspiration. It must be especially so to the distinguished gentlemen, our guests, who will address you. So it comes to pa.s.s that you are to have to-night the advantage of listening to inspired men--an advantage not uncommon in the days of the prophets, but rare in our times. [Laughter and applause.] It is proper and agreeable to us all just here and now to recognize as with us our friend and benefactor and president emeritus, the Hon. Benjamin D. Silliman. [A voice: "Three cheers for that grand old man." The company rising gave rousing cheers.] He is with us with a young heart and a cheerful mind, and continues to be what he has been from the beginning--a loyal and devoted friend of our Society. [Applause.]

We are here this evening enjoying the sufferings of our Pilgrim Fathers.

[Merriment.] Their heroic work takes in Plymouth Rock, ours takes in the Saddle Rock. They enjoyed game of their own shooting, we enjoy game of other's shooting; they drank cold water, because they could no longer get Holland beer. The fact that they must give up Dutch beer was one of the considerations (so we are told by one of their Governors) that made them loath to leave Leyden. [Laughter.] We drink cold water because we want it and like it. The Pilgrim Fathers went to church armed with muskets; we go to church with our minds stuffed and demoralized by the contents of Sunday morning newspapers. [Laughter.] The Pilgrim mothers went to church dressed in simple attire, because they could afford nothing elaborate and because they thought they could better catch and hold the devotional spirit. The Pilgrim mothers of our day go to church with costly toilets, because they can afford it, and are quite willing to take the chances as to catching and holding the aforesaid spirit.

[Laughter.] The Pilgrim Fathers, when they made the compact on the Mayflower, planted the seeds of const.i.tutional freedom; we, their worthy sons, commemorate their work; try to perpetuate it and enjoy the fruits thereof.

It is sometimes said the Pilgrims were a solemn people; that they were not cheerful. Well, in their severe experience in England and Holland and at Plymouth, there was much to make a born optimist grave and thoughtful. But it is a mistake to suppose that they could not rejoice with those who rejoiced as well as weep with those who wept. Take, for instance, the first Thanksgiving festival held by the Pilgrims. The quaint account of this by one of their Governors is always interesting.

This first American Thanksgiving took place at Plymouth in 1621, only about ten months after the landing. It was like a Jewish festival, continuing out of doors for a week. The Pilgrim writer, Governor Winslow, describes it thus: "Our harvest being gotten in, our Governor (meaning Governor Bradford) sent four men out fowling, so that we might, after a special manner (meaning doubtless a gay and festive manner) rejoice together after (not counting chickens before they were hatched) we had gathered the fruit of our labors." Now, listen to this: "They killed in one day so much fowl as, with a little help beside, served the company almost a week." What this "little help beside" was, is not stated. In our day it would mean that the hunter and the fisherman made heavy drafts upon Fulton Market for meat, fowl, and fish, to supply what was short. "At which time," says the writer, "among other recreations, we exercised our arms"--this probably means they shot at a mark [laughter]--"many of the Indians coming among us"--they were not the mark, at least this time--"and among the rest, their greatest king, Ma.s.sasoit, with some ninety men, whom for three days we entertained and feasted." Think of that; feasting ninety Indians three days, and the whole colony besides. What New England Society has ever made so good a showing of hospitality and good cheer? [Laughter.] "And they" (the ninety Indians), "went out and killed five deer."

Now, I submit, we have here a clear case of the application of the great principle of honest, even-handed co-operation, no modern device in that line could surpa.s.s it. It is true the Indians were not an incorporated society, and so there was no receiver appointed to wind them up.

[Laughter.] "Which they brought," says the writer, "to the plantation and bestowed on our Governor" (meaning Governor Bradford), "our captain, and others." Governor Bradford, in speaking of this, tells us that among the fowl brought in "was a great store of turkeys." Thus begins the sad history in this country of the rise and annual fall on Thanksgiving days of that exalted biped--the American turkey. After this description of a Pilgrim festival day who shall ever again say the Pilgrims could not be merry if they had half a chance to be so. Why, if the Harvard and Yale football teams had been on hand with their great national game of banging each others' eyes and breaking bones promiscuously, they could not have added to the spirit of the day though they might to its variety of pastime. [Laughter.]

It is interesting to remember in this connection that in the earlier years of the colonies, Thanksgiving day did not come every year. It came at various periods of the year from May to December, and the intervals between them sometimes four or five years, gradually shortened and then finally settled into an annual festival on the last Thursday of November. A few years ago two Governors of Maine ventured to appoint a day in December for Thanksgiving. Neither of them was re-elected.

[Laughter.] The crowning step in this development, which is now national, was when the fortunes of our late war were in favor of the Union, and a proclamation for a national Thanksgiving was issued by our then President, dear old Abraham Lincoln. [Applause.] That the festival shall hereafter and forever be national is a part of our unwritten law.

[Applause.] It will thus be seen that we, the sons of the Pilgrims, may fairly and modestly claim that this feature of our national life, like most of the others that are valuable, proceeded directly from Plymouth Rock. The New England Society in the City of Brooklyn, will ever honor the work and the memory of the fathers. As in the sweet lines of Bryant:

"Till where the sun, with softer fires, Looks on the vast Pacific's sleep, The children of the Pilgrim sires This hallowed day, like us, shall keep."

[General applause.]

WILLIAM WINTER

TRIBUTE TO JOHN GILBERT

[Speech of William Winter at a dinner given by the Lotos Club, New York City, November 30, 1878, to John Gilbert, in honor of the fiftieth anniversary of his first appearance on the stage. Whitelaw Reid presided. William Winter responded to the toast "The Dramatic Critic."]

MR. PRESIDENT AND GENTLEMEN:--I thank you very gratefully for this kind welcome, and I think it a privilege to be allowed to take part in a festival so delightful as this, and join with you in paying respect to a name so justly renowned and honored as that of John Gilbert. I cannot hope adequately to respond to the personal sentiments which have been so graciously expressed nor adequately celebrate the deeds and the virtues of your distinguished guest. "I am ill at these numbers ... but such answer as I can make you shall command." For since first I became familiar with the stage--in far-away days in old Boston, John Gilbert has been to me the fulfilment of one of my highest ideals of excellence in the dramatic art; and it would be hard if I could not now say this, if not with eloquence at least with fervor.

I am aware of a certain strangeness, however, in the thought that words in his presence and to his honor should be spoken by me. The freaks of time and fortune are indeed strange. I cannot but remember that when John Gilbert was yet in the full flush of his young manhood and already crowned with the laurels of success the friend who is now speaking was a boy at his sports--playing around the old Federal Street Theatre, and beneath the walls of the Franklin Street Cathedral, and hearing upon the broad causeways of Pearl Street the rustle and patter of the autumn leaves as they fell from the chestnuts around the Perkins Inst.i.tution and the elms that darkened the sombre, deserted castle of Harris's Folly. With this sense of strangeness though, comes a sense still more striking and impressive of the turbulent, active, and brilliant period through which John Gilbert has lived. Byron had been dead but four years [1828] and Scott and Wordsworth were still writing when he began to act.

Goethe was still living. The works of Thackeray and d.i.c.kens were yet to be created. Cooper, Irving, Bryant, Halleck, and Percival were the literary lords of that period. The star of Willis was ascending while those of Hawthorne and Poe were yet to rise; and the dramas of Talfourd, Knowles, and Bulwer were yet to be seen by him as fresh contributions to the literature of the stage. All these great names are written in the book of death. All that part of old Boston to which I have referred--the scene equally of Gilbert's birth and youth and first successes and of his tender retrospection--has been swept away or entirely changed. Gone is the old Federal Street Theatre. Gone that quaint English alley with the cosey tobacconist's shop which he used to frequent. Gone the hospitable Stackpole where many a time at the "latter end of a sea-coal fire" he heard the bell strike midnight from the spire of the Old South Church! But, though "the spot where many times he triumphed is forgot"--his calm and gentle genius and his hale physique have endured in unabated vigor, so that he has charmed two generations of play-goers, still happily lives to charm men and women of to-day. Webster, Choate, Felton, Everett, Rantoul, Shaw, Bartlett, Lunt, Halleck, Starr King, Bartol, Kirk--these and many more, the old worthies of the bar, bench, and the pulpit in Boston's better days of intellect and taste:--all saw him as we see him in the silver-gray elegance and exquisite perfection with which he ill.u.s.trates the comedies of England.

His career has impinged upon the five great cities of Boston, New Orleans, Philadelphia, London, and New York. It touches at one extreme the ripe fame of Munden (who died in '32) and--freighted with all the rich traditions of the stage--it must needs at its other extreme transmit even into the next century the high mood, the scholar-like wit, and the pure style of the finest strain of acting that Time has bestowed upon civilized man. By what qualities it has been distinguished this brilliant a.s.semblage is full well aware. The dignity which is its grandeur; the sincerity which is its truth; the thoroughness which is its ma.s.sive substance; the sterling principle which is its force; the virtue which is its purity; the scholars.h.i.+p, mind, humor, taste, versatile apt.i.tude of simulation, and beautiful grace of method, which are its so powerful and so delightful faculties and attributes, have all been brought home to your minds and hearts by the wealth and clear genius of the man himself!

I have often lingered in fancy upon the idea of that strange, diversified, wonderful procession--here the dazzling visage of Garrick, there the woful face of Mossop; here the glorious eyes of Kean; there the sparkling loveliness of an Abington or a Jordan--which moves through the chambers of the memory across almost any old and storied stage. The thought is endless in its suggestion, and fascinating in its charm. How often in the chimney-corner of life shall we--whose privilege it has been to rejoice in the works of this great comedian, and whose happiness it is to cl.u.s.ter around him to-night in love and admiration--conjure up and muse upon his stately figure as we have seen it in the group of Sir Peter and Sir Robert, of Jaques and Wolsey, and Elmore! The ruddy countenance, the twinkling gray eyes, the silver hair, the kind smile, the hearty voice, the old-time courtesy of manner--how tenderly will they be remembered! How dearly are they prized! Scholar!--Actor!--Gentleman!

long may he be spared to dignify and adorn the stage--a soother of our cares, and comfort to our hearts--exemplar for our lives!--the Edelweiss of his age and of our affections! [Great applause.]

TRIBUTE TO LESTER WALLACK

[Speech of William Winter at a banquet of the Lotos Club, given to Lester Wallack, December 17, 1887. Whitelaw Reid, the President of the Club, occupied the chair. Mr. Winter was called upon to speak in behalf of the critics.]

MR. PRESIDENT AND GENTLEMEN:--You have done me great honor in asking me to be present on this occasion, and you have conferred upon me a great privilege in permitting me to partic.i.p.ate with you in this tribute of affection and admiration for John Lester Wallack, your distinguished and most deservedly honored guest and my personal friend these many, many years. [Cheers.]

I thank you for your thoughtful courtesy and for this distinguished mark of your favor. Being well aware of my defects both as a thinker and a speaker, I shrink from such emergencies as this, but having known him so long and having been in a professional way a.s.sociated with so many of his labors and his triumphs, I should fail in duty if I were not at least to try to add my word of love, feeble and inadequate as it may be, to the n.o.ble volume of your sympathy and homage. [Cheers.]

The presence of this brilliant a.s.semblage, the eloquent words which have fallen from the lips of your honored president and the speeches of your orators, they signify some change--I will not say in regard to the advancement of the stage--but they signify a wonderful advancement in our times in sympathetic and thoughtful and just appreciation of the theatre. This was not always so. It is not very long since so wise and gentle a man as Charles Lamb expressed his mild astonishment that a person capable of committing to memory and reciting the language of Shakespeare could for that reason be supposed to possess a mind congenial with that of the poet. The scorn of Carlyle and the scarcely less injurious pity of Emerson for the actor are indications that in a time not remote, thought and philosophy have made but little account of the stage.

Something might be said about this by a voice more competent than mine, for in our time there has been a change in the intelligent spirit of the age, and I am sure that thought and philosophy now are of the opinion that the actor is an intellectual and spiritual force; that he is connected most intimately with the cause of public education; that he brings something of his own, and that, although the part provides the soul, it is the actor who must provide the body, and without the soul and the body, you could not have dramatic representations for the benefit of them. [Applause.]

I am not one of those writers who believe that it is the business of the newspaper to manage the theatres. The question of what to do to please the public taste, to provide mankind with what they like, or what they want, or, which is the same thing, with what they think they want, opens a very complex inquiry. Our dear friend has been puzzled by it himself more than a little. I should not undertake to instruct him, but as the observer of his course I have been struck by wonder and admiration of the way he has carried his theatre through seasons of great compet.i.tion and great peril.

I call to mind one season, now seventeen years ago, I think, when in the course of a very few months, he produced and presented upward of thirty-two plays, showing the best points of these plays and showing his great company to every possible advantage; so have I seen a juggler toss fifty knives in the air and catch them without cutting his fingers.

[At the close of his speech Mr. Winter read the following poem.]--

LESTER WALLACK

With a glimmer of plumes and a sparkle of lances, With blare of the trumpets and neigh of the steed, At morning they rode where the bright river glances, And the sweet summer wind ripples over the mead; The green sod beneath them was ermined with daisies, Smiling up to green boughs tossing wild in their glee, While a thousand glad hearts sang their honors and praises, While the Knights of the Mountain rode down to the sea.

One rode 'neath the banner whose face was the fairest, Made royal with deeds that his manhood had done, And the halo of blessing fell richest and rarest On his armor that splintered the shafts of the sun;

So moves o'er the waters the cygnet sedately, So waits the strong eagle to mount on the wing, Serene and puissant and simple and stately, So s.h.i.+nes among princes the form of the King.

With a gay bugle-note when the daylight's last glimmer Smites crimson and gold on the snow of his crest, At evening he rides through the shades growing dimmer, While the banners of sunset stream red in the West; His comrades of morning are scattered and parted, The clouds hanging low and the winds making moan, But smiling and dauntless and brave and true-hearted, All proudly he rides down the valley alone.

Sweet gales of the woodland embrace and caress him, White wings of renown be his comfort and light, Pale dews of the starbeam encompa.s.s and bless him, With the peace and the balm and the glory of night; And, Oh! while he wends to the verge of that ocean, Where the years like a garland shall fall from his brow, May his glad heart exult in the tender devotion, The love that encircles and hallows him now.