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More than any man of his day he wrote and spoke and labored for an unshackled healthy brain, an untrammelled truthful tongue.
C.P.FARRELL
New
York, Nov. 1, 1919.
NO ADEQUATE PORTRAITURE
It
would seem, therefore, that little can be added, that
nothing more can be said worth the saying, that the field has been
harvested. It is only in the hope of garnering grains ungathered by
other gleaners that the present sketch has been attempted. It does
not aspire to the rank of extended biography. Its simple purpose is
to show Mr. Ingersoll as he appeared to one who had unusual
opportunities of knowing him, -- to one whose high privilege it was
to be in almost daily contact with him for many years. The writer
is only too conscious that even with this advantage what skill he
may have must fall far short of any adequate portraiture. He covets
a fineness of perception, a keenness and breadth of intellectual
vision,
a
balance of judgment, a strength of statement and a grace
of style he has not, fitly to undertake the study. Only a genius
can portray a genius. Only a master of expression can express a
master. and the writer has been but sitting at a great master's
feet.
Any faithful sketch of such a man from such a source must
therefore be an eulogy. Admiration cannot be restrained, feelings
cannot
be repressed, nor can the flow of truthful phrase be checked
when a loving pupil wields the brush or guides the pen. No matter
from
what point of view he sees the subject, the same commanding
figure
is
before him. All the rays of white light focussed on Mr.
Ingersoll reveal him as a man of the highest, strongest, finest
mental and moral fibre, -- such a man, indeed, as Nature bears but
once among countless millions of her human children.
My acquaintance with Mr. Ingersoll began soon after the death of his brother Ebon, and while the immortal word spoken at the funeral were still thrilling through the world. Literature has no parallel to this tribute by a brother living to a brother dead. these brothers were lovers, and never failed each day on reaching their office to give a warm embrace. The sign they first hung out law partners became a sacred thing to Robert, and in all his changes of location, from Peoria to Washington, to New York, -- wherever he chanced to be, -- he kept that modest little sign in constant view from the desk in his private office.
I entered this office in 1879 as Mr. Ingersoll's. secretary, and remained with him continuously until in 1892, a period of nearly fourteen years. During all this time it was my privilege to be with him in business hours, in days of leisure, of travel and of social intercourse, to be honored by his friendship, entrusted with his confidence, and, with my wife, enrolled almost a member of that beautiful family of which he was creator and inspirer, sun and shield.
THE STAR ROUTE CASES
In the much misunderstood Star Route Cases Mr. Ingersoll was
leading counsel for the defense, and by unanimous consent was
chosen chairman of the defendant's attorneys in all their
conferences. His masterly conduct of those cases through a
prolonged and intricate trial covering two and more years, is a
matter
of history and record. His associates were filled with
admiration and amazement at the legal ability he displayed. His
knowledge of the law, his almost infallible judgment, his
prodigious memory of the facts extending to the minutest details
and rendering him for the most part independent of the record, his
impregnable logic, his lucid statements of the law and the
testimony and his forensic power -- all marked him as easily chief
among
the eminent counsel in that contest.
JURISTS' ESTIMATES
The
late Judge Jeremiah Wilson, one of the, brightest lights
of the Washington bar, said to the writer: "What most impressed me
in Col. Ingersoll's course throughout the trial and compelled my
profound admiration, was not his legal learning, wide and accurate
as I
knew
that to be, but his inimitable tact, his unerring
judgment of the course to be pursued day by day, the witnesses to
be examined, the weight to be given to their testimony, the points
to be included and emphasized as vital and the parts to be excluded
as irrelevant, incompetent and immaterial, -- in short, his
marvelous management of the entire case. He absolutely made no
mistakes, as the outcome proved. We seldom overruled him, and when
we did found later that he was right and we were wrong."
The Honorable Walter Davidge, dean of the Washington bar, who had been selected by his associates to follow Mr. Ingersoll's closing address to the jury, said: "May it please your Honor, it was understood among counsel that both Colonel Ingersoll and myself should have the privilege of addressing the jury if in the judgment of either it should be thought necessary. I have felt such a deep interest in this case that I have almost hoped he might leave unoccupied some portion of the field of argument. I have listened to every word that has fallen from his lips. He has filled the whole area of the case with such matchless ability and eloquence, that I have no ground upon which I could stand in making any further argument. I can add nothing whatever to what he has said. I need not add that every syllable he has uttered receives my grateful endorsement."
The Capital, a leading journal in Washington, commenting on Colonel Ingersoll's closing address to the Jury in the first Star Route trial, said:
"The most characteristic feature of the trial was the
marvelously powerful speech of Colonel Robert G. Ingersoll before
the Jury and the Judge. People who knew this gifted gentleman only
superficially, had supposed that he was merely superficial as a
lawyer. While acknowledging his remarkable ability as an orator,
and his vast accomplishments as a speaker, they doubted the depth
of his power. They heard him, and the doubt ceased. It can be said
of Ingersoll, as was written of Castelar, that his eloquent
utterances are as the finely-fashioned ornamental designs on a
Damascus blade, -- the blade cuts as keenly, and the embellishments
beautify without retarding its power."
AN EPISODE
On one occasion the venerable Judge Wylie refused a motion
made by Mr. Ingersoll on the ground that he had already decided and
denied it. "But your Honor twice ruled the other way."
"Impossible!" said the Court. "I think the record will show," and
the Colonel handed the book to the Judge, with page and lines
indicated. The Court reddening replied: "Well, the fact that I
ruled in defendants' favor ought to be satisfactory to them, and
that I twice so ruled should not weaken the ruling nor lessen their
satisfaction."
The triumphs he scored over opposing counsel in their many legal tilts, the heated and sometimes bitter attacks and retorts, -- never invited by Mr. Ingersoll, but out of which he emerged victorious, -- his uniform fairness and candor, the accuracy of his statements when challenged, showing his thorough command of every detail, and finally his matchless summing up, made their irresistible impression on court and jury alike, and in the teeth of popular opinion and clamor fomented and fed by false press reports, and against all the power, prestige and pursuit of two National Administrations, won the case.
HIS RESPECT FOR THE LAW
Though by choice a lawyer and in practice an eminently
successful one, he did not seem, in later life, at least, to have
retained his early ardor for the profession. For the law itself he
never lost respect and reverence. To him it was the bulwark of
Justice, the safeguard of Liberty, and he gloried in its history
and achievements. But for the perversions of the law he felt only
contempt and indignation. He hated all dishonest and degenerate
methods in its practice. The law, he held, should be invoked only
in the interest of truth and justice, but was too often made the
tool of injustice, oppression and wrong. He scorned to resort to
the sophistries and subterfuges employed by many in the profession.
He did not care to win a case merely for the fee involved or for
the
glory of winning it. He wanted the Right to triumph and could
rejoice only when Victory perched on the heights of Truth.
Again, he chafed under the fetters and limitations of the modern practice. He believed that justice was often entangled in the net of technicalities. He could not endure the mechanical reliance on books, the cast-iron molds, the cut and dried forms, canned and labelled processes, papers and preparations ready-made for every case and all occasions. Most of these so-called helps he considered hindrances that crippled the law and made it limp and halt where it ought to leap and run. "The law's delay" he said, "is more often the lawyer's delay and should not be tolerated." Modern methods he believed consumed time, stifled originality, repressed individual initiative and tended to make of the law a mere puppet, an echo of old opinions, rulings and decisions, a slave to precedent. He hated the shackles of precedent. He hated all shackles. He wanted to be free to decide for himself in the law no less than in religion and in all other realms of thought and action. He was original, creative, independent. He examined rulings of courts but did not necessarily follow them. He has said to me, "One Judge contradicts another and between them I make my own decisions. If the law is not my way in this contention, it ought to be," and on this line he fought and won many a legal battle.
DRUDGERY OF THE LAW
Quite naturally it followed that he could not submit to the
drudgery of the law, the loss of valuable time poring over State
and Federal Reports, and while his library was a rich storehouse of
all
legal lore he yet often displayed impatience when obliged to
resort
to it. His clerks relieved him of that drudgery.
Nevertheless, in spite of his natural antipathies, and fully
conscious of his quick mental perceptions his genius for all
acquisition -- he acknowledged his debt to that early study and
application which had so thoroughly drilled and equipped him for
his profession. In his young manhood he had read and studied with
industry and enthusiasm, even to the breaking down of his physical
health. He knew the law in all its phases, -- its history,
principles and interpretations -- as few men knew it. And he knew
how to apply it. He was a maker of opinion and its interpreter in
nearly every continent and province of human thought.
HIS QUICK PERCEPTION
His marvelously quick and clear perception of any problem or
proposition, no matter how intricate or involved, seemed little
less
than miraculous. A prospective client once came to him with a
budget
of typewritten matter and asked if he would go through it.
"Certainly; let me see it." "Very well, Colonel, I'll leave it and
call in
a day or two for your answer." "Nonsense; wait a minute."
Then turning over the pages one by one he handed back the screened,
saying, "You have a good cause, and if you wish I will undertake it
for
you." "But you don't know it yet, Colonel?" "Oh yes I do."
"Why, it includes a good many knotty questions and has lots of
figuring in it." "To be sure; I have gone over them; haven't I just
read it all? To convince you, I will restate it, and then point by
point
Mr. Ingersoll rehearsed the subject-matter, not omitting the
figured calculations. "Amazing, Colonel; I believe you could see
through
a brick wall! It has taken me and my assistants days to
prepare that statement, and you have mastered it in a few minutes!"
He tried the case and got the verdict.
INGERSOLL AND CONKLING
Another incident will illustrate this X-ray faculty of Mr.
Ingersoll's mind. In a telegraph suit before Judge Wallace at
Syracuse, New York, the late Roscoe Conkling and the Colonel were
associate counsel. On the train from New York, Mr. Conkling said:
"I'm ashamed to confess it, Colonel, but I really haven't had time
properly to examine the papers in this case and I don't feel
prepared to argue it; you must do it, or we will have to move a
postponement." "No, no, that won't do, it will damage our suit; let
me see the papers." Mr. Conkling produced them. The Colonel
examined them. Before reaching Syracuse he handed them back,
saying: "Conkling, I will argue this case, although, as you know,
my
throat
is bad to-day and I'll have to whisper my argument in the
Court's ear." "I'm extremely sorry, Colonel, to put this burden on
you, but I see no other way. Do you think you understand the case
with
this brief inspection?" "Perfectly; as well as if I had
studied it for weeks," and for the next few miles he laid it all
out before his astonished auditor. "Is that the way you prepare
your briefs, Colonel?" "Why not? If I can't catch on to a case by
reading it, as soon as the Court does by hearing it, I'd make a
nice Judge or lawyer, wouldn't I?" "You're a strange man, Colonel,
I can't fathom you!" The case was argued in a whisper, and won.
This remark of the Senator was meant as a compliment -- the highest he could pay to the ability and genius of a brother lawyer. I cannot forget his look and manner of unfeigned admiration, as he expressed himself. Not long after -- alas, too soon! -- when the New York Legislature requested Colonel Ingersoll to deliver before them a memorial address on Senator Conkling, the Colonel delivered the noblest tribute to his departed friend and associate ever heard in a legislative hall.
When urged sometimes by nervous clients to defer his summing up of their case a reasonable time after all the evidence was in and the arguments heard, he would say: "I want no adjournment, I am ready to go right on; I have heard it all as fully as the Court and jury, and that's enough." A readier, more alert mind than Robert G. Ingersoll's never practiced in a court of law.
BEFORE A JURY
In the trial of a case before a jury Mr. Ingersoll was
probably at his best in the examination of a witness. He was so
patient, though persistent, in getting at the facts, so considerate
and so fair, that he often compelled the truth from hesitating and
unwilling lips. He did not brow beat or hector a witness. He did
not resort to cheap arts to entrap him. He did not abuse his
privilege as a lawyer and treat a witness on the stand as if he
were a criminal in the dock: No one under his searching cross-
examination had ever to appeal to the Court for protection. Before
a jury
he was persuasive and convincing, not only by the power of
his eloquence, but by the force of his cogent reasoning, and the
skillful marshalling of the evidence to sustain his case. He
appealed to the reason and conscience of his jury, not to their
prejudices or passions. He was truly entitled to the reputation he
bore as one of the greatest jury lawyers of his time.
BEFORE COURT AND COUNSEL
Before Court and counsel he was always the courteous
gentleman, never impugning motives or flinging epithet or
invective. He was always sure of his subject and object. He had
perfect poise, was always erect, self-contained and self-
controlled. He was never in a hurry, never flurried, never
flustered. He was always at himself, never taken by surprise or off
his guard. In all the many legal encounters he fought I never knew
him to
be worsted in ready and apt attack and defense. The fitting
retort was always at the door of his lips, waiting to leap into
utterance, One instance will serve for many:
"ANANIAS AND SAPPHIRA"
In a Toledo, Ohio, terminal suit, counsel for the other side
interrupted Mr. Ingersoll in the midst of his argument by asking:
"Colonel, did you ever read the story of Ananias and Sapphira?"
"Yes," came the reply, quick as a flash, "and while you were
speaking this afternoon I looked to see you drop dead every minute!"
The hit was so palpable, so perfect, that even the dignified
Court of a Federal District joined in the general convulsion and
tilted
so violently in his chair that he came perilously near
toppling over.
In short, those in a position to know and qualified to judge, -- those at all acquainted with Mr. Ingersoll's legal attainments and career, -- accorded to him the highest honors. In nearly every court in which he practiced he was regarded as the leading figure. In any important case in which he appeared, only the greatest champions ventured in the lists against him; no lesser knight of the law could hope to cope successfully with him. He was in truth, with all his other claims to greatness, one of the really great lawyers of his day.
Interruptions when he was busy in his office, did not seem to disturb or distract him. In the midst of dictation of correspondence or argument he would welcome a caller and after a chat or "interview" resume his dictation at the point of leaving it. Sometimes an hour, a day, or even days, would intervene; he did not lose the thread but went on weaving as though the loom had not for an instant stopped. He shut no visitor, although his clerks of their own motion excluded many a freak or crank, notwithstanding his repeated request to deny no decent person on audience.
The Colonel was fond of bright newspaper men. He liked to answer questions. Interviewers flocked to him. They were always welcomed and never disappointed if they asked sensible and proper questions. "Fire away!" was his cheery invitation, and to their queries a flood of wit, wisdom, humor, philosophy, logic and sense would pour out as from a strong fountain. The files of many metropolitan journals were enriched by these spontaneous effusions.
HIS DAILY MAIL
His dally mail was heavy. All sorts of people wrote to him on
all conceivable subjects. This correspondence was sifted; only a
tithe reached his eye, -- those letters absolutely requiring his
attention. Requests to lecture and appeals for pecuniary help were
of
course multitudinous. Many were granted, though of necessity
more
were denied. Aside from his large business and professional
correspondence, letters on religious questions poured in upon him.
Advice, argument and appeal, more or less sincere, and sad to say,
abuse, slander and defamation of the most scurrilous kind, were not
uncommon, while now and then anonymous threats of his life were
received. Whenever possible, and wherever sincerity and
intelligence were manifest and abuse and malice absent, these
letters received reply. They were copied, and the letter-books
containing these replies would make a rich mine of material for
extended biography.
SENSE OF LOCALITY
He had little order in the care of papers; his desk was for
the most part in confusion. And yet he had a method of his own,
with all the apparent disorder. When his desk reached the limit of
congestion, letters and papers were carefully collected, classified
and
filed
for him and the coast thus cleared. "I put that paper
just where I wanted it, why did you remove it?" was his usual
comment on this desk-clearing process. His sense of locality was so
keen
that
many times I have seen him produce a needed document from
a large bundle, or a letter from beneath a scattered pile, without
a
moments hesitation. He could have found that celebrated needle if
he had had anything to do with putting it in the hay. His volume of
Shakespeare usually served as a paper-weight on his office desk. It
was always in sight and often taken up even in busy hours. He
needed for it no index or concordance. Page, column and line were
instantly turned to. He has said to me, "I know where to find that
passage in Hamlet; it is on page 432, on the right hand side, left
hand column, and at the bottom of the column."
Equally remarkable was his far-reaching accuracy of vision. His eagle eye could take in more at a single glance than most men's after close inspection. Very little going on around him escaped his notice. Once, in a trial out West, he was to open the case. Counsel for the other side sat to the front and left of him, several feet removed, going over his notes prior to oral presentation. The Colonel's quick eye caught the paper, and as he assured me, without intention or purpose -- before he could help it -- he had taken in several points of his adversary's argument. He was bothered, he said, in making his opening, by the necessity of avoiding the suspicion that he had in any way gained possession of his opponent's brief. He made no unfair use of the accident. In fact, he said, the knowledge hampered more than helped him.
A STAINLESS RECORD
Nothing was, nothing could be, further from Mr. Ingersoll than
deceit, indirection or double-dealing. He was the very soul of
truth,
of
honor, and of candor. He was, indeed, a modern Bayard, "a
knight without fear and without reproach." His escutcheon was
unstained, and never in any court was his veracity impeached, or
his professional honor successfully assailed. He was high-soled,
high-minded, high-acting and incapable of a grovelling thought, or
a mean
or low initiative. His professional antagonists, everywhere
encountered, admitted that he always fought in the open and were
often surprised at the large admissions and generous concessions he
made.
His clients sometimes quaked as they feared he was giving
away their case. He was not. The outcome proved that his method was
the highest art, the wisest wisdom.
AN ORACLE
His intuitions were like a woman's -- often infallible. In
many an instance they were as unerring as his judgment was sound,
-- amounting almost to prophecy fulfilled. On that fatal morning in
July
when the assassin's bullet laid low the lamented Garfield, Mr.
Ingersoll was one of the first at the stricken President's side. He
said to me: "I know he will not live. I feel it. He may rally, and
linger a few days, but he cannot recover." Despite all that human
skill could do, all means that science could employ, or all that
Christendom on its knees could implore, the end came.
It was this gift or endowment, added to his clear judgment and knowledge of human nature, that made him the seer and prophet he really was. This rare combination in him was recognized by many who sought his advice and counsel. Statesmen, politicians, men of affairs in public and private life resorted to him as to an oracle, and his "guesses," as he called them, frequently came true. He never claimed to have soothsaying or clairvoyant powers, -- for he was absolutely without a superstition -- but he was none the less one whose predictions were often justified by the events.
PRINCELY GENEROSITY
He extended to young lawyers and students of the law a most
encouraging hand. He liked young men. He helped them by counsel, by
opening doors of opportunity, and with pecuniary aid. Many a
new-fledged attorney and many an aged, stranded one "on his
uppers," as he would say, went from his presence with a gladder
heart
and fuller pocket. A hundred dollar bill was a frequent gift
from his open hand, to say not a word of the thousands scattered in
larger and smaller sums. He gave his advice freely to hundreds, --
especially to the widow, the poor and defenseless, and tried many
a case
to a happy conclusion, not only without a fee, but himself
paying all costs and disbursements.
As a matter of fact, he was seldom richly remunerated in the celebrated cases undertaken by him. The Star Route trials cost him more than he received in actual compensation. He cared too little for money to insist even on his rights. His office books were filled with accounts never collected, with charges never paid, and yet this did not cheek the flow of his extravagant generosity. He loved to give. He was princely in giving. In one case where a thirty-thousand dollar fee came to him he instantly gave half of it to a young assistant to whom two or three thousand dollars would have been an ample and satisfactory return for the service rendered. In another case, on receiving a fee of fifteen thousand dollars, he immediately wrote a cheek for one third of the amount to the friend who had simply urged his selection as the best lawyer for the case. The unexpected gift enabled this friend to lift a mortgage that had long encumbered her home.
Henry Ward Beecher, who certainly may be quoted as competent authority, once said in introducing him to a Brooklyn audience, "He is the most brilliant speaker of the English tongue of all men on this globe." The lamented Garfield, who himself was a distinguished orator, once wrote to Mr. Ingersoll, who spoke for him in his campaign for the Presidency: "I have followed with intense interest your brilliant campaign in my behalf. You have appeared to me like a pillar of cloud by day and fire by night. Your path has been one broad band of blazing light. I give you my profoundest admiration and gratitude." In the famous Davis Will Case in Montana both Judge and prosecuting attorney cautioned the jury to be on their guard lest they be carried away by Colonel Ingersoll's eloquence, "which," the attorney remarked, "is famed over two continents and in the islands of the seas, rivalling that of Demosthenes and transcending the oratory of Greece and Rome." And this warning was not an infrequent one to juries before whom Mr. Ingersoll appeared as advocate.
LARGE LECTURE RECEIPTS
His audiences on his frequent lecture tours were nearly
everywhere large and enthusiastic. "Standing Room Only" was the
sign often displayed at the entrance of the hall or theater where
he was
to
speak. His lecture receipts were extraordinary. In a trip
West at one time they amounted to more than fifty thousand dollars,
net, in one month. Boston, New York, Chicago and San Francisco
always gave him a warm and sympathetic welcome. Two or three
thousand dollars for a single lecture was not an unusual sum
received from Boston, while one great assemblage in the Auditorium
at Chicago yielded exactly seven thousand and one dollars, -- the
highest sum, we may well believe, ever realized for a single
lecture in the history of the platform.
The most thoughtful, intelligent and highly cultivated people of a community thronged to hear him. Even hearers who hesitated to accept all he said could not help admiring the way he said it, and if not convinced, never left the auditorium but in a thoughtful mood. instances were common where men and women travelled long distances to listen to his eloquent words, and one ardent admirer -- a young lawyer from Boston -- followed him thousands of miles that he might not lose an opportunity of hearing him.
GREAT SPEECHES
Most Americans are familiar with his speech nominating Mr.
Blaine for the Presidency, in which he invested that brilliant
statesman with the title "Plumed Knight," a sobriquet that remained
with him to the end of his career. His great speech at the "Grant
Banquet," his thrilling epic "A Vision of War," or "The Past Rises
Before
me Like
a
Dream," delivered at a soldiers' reunion in
Indianapolis; his wonderful "Decoration Day Oration," in New York,
his tribute to his brother Ebon, his matchless memorial to his
friend and associate, Roscoe Conkling, and the laureate crown he
laid on the tomb of his friend and leader, the martyred Lincoln,
together with many other eulogies of the noble dead that sprang
from his generous and passionately patriotic heart, are to-day the
treasured possessions of his countrymen. His lips dropped polished
pearls that will adorn and enrich the language of his day and of
all
time.
A MEMORABLE SCENE
The tribute paid by Mr. Ingersoll to his beloved brother Ebon
was everywhere acknowledged to be the most profoundly tender and
beautiful in English literature. It has become classic. The scene
of its utterance, in its whole setting, was solemnly dramatic.
Around the bier, gathered as mourners, were many of the first men
of the Nation. They had come, not only in sympathy with the
grief-stricken brother, but to mingle their tears with his in
homage
of their late friend and associate. The Hon. Ebon C.
Ingersoll was well known in social and official circles in
Washington. He was a Member of Congress, a staunch Republican and
true patriot, and well and faithfully served his Illinois
constituency. He was a wise legislator, a man of unbending
integrity, a true and loyal friend. As a lawyer he was able and
well equipped, and while a forceful speaker, was not as "dearly
parted" as his brilliant brother although he was a wise and safe
counsellor. In religious belief he was a firm Agnostic, an ardent
supporter of Robert in all campaigns against superstition and
fanaticism, and he gloried in his fame as the greatest orator of
the day. As Mr. Ingersoll has said: "It was from his lips I heard
the
first words of encouragement and praise." Ebon C. was a worthy
companion of Robert G., and an honor to the family whose name he
bore.
The following vivid description of the scene attending the delivery of the Tribute, and of the funeral obsequies, is taken from the National Republican of Washington, published the day after the funeral:
"The funeral of the Hon. E. C. Ingersoll took place yesterday
afternoon at four o'clock, from his late residence, 1403 K
Street. The spacious parlors were filled to overflowing, and
hundreds were unable to obtain admittance. Among those who were
present to pay their homage to the distinguished and beloved dead
were Secretary of the Treasury Sherman, Assistant-Secretary of
the Treasury Hawley, Senators Blaine, Voorhees, Paddock, David
Davis, John A. Logan, the Hon. William M. Morrison, Hon. William
M. Springer, Hon. Thomas A. Boyd, Governor Pound, Hon. J. R.
Thomas, Hon. Thomas J. Henderson, Hon. Jeremiah Wilson, Adlai E.
Stevenson, Col, Ward H. Lamon, Col. James Fishback, General
Farnsworth, General Robert C. Schenck, General Jeffries, General
Williams and the Hon. H.C. Burchard, Judge Shellbarger, General
Birney, Governor Lowe, Acting Commissioner of Internal Revenue H.
C. Rogers, General Williamson of the Land Office and a great many
other prominent members of the bar and also a large number of
Illinoisans were present. It was the largest gathering of
distinguished persons assembled at a funeral since that of
Chief-Justice Chase."
"The only ceremony at the house, other than the viewing of
the remains, was a most affecting, pathetic and touching address
by Col. Robert G. Ingersoll, brother of the deceased. When he
began to read his eloquent characterization of the dead man his
eyes at once filled with tears. He tried to hide them, but he
could
not do it, and finally he bowed his head upon the dead
man's coffin in uncontrollable grief. It was only after some
delay, and the greatest efforts at self-mastery, that Colonel
Ingersoll was able to finish reading his address. When he had
ceased speaking, the members of the bereaved family approached
the casket and looked upon the form which it contained, for the
last time. The scene was heartrending. The devotion of all
connected with the household excited the sympathy of all, and
there
was not
a dry
eye to
be seen. The pall-bearers -- Senator
William B. Allison, Senator James G. Blaine, Senator David Davis,
Senator Daniel Voohees, Representative James A. Garfield, Senator
A.S. Paddock, Representative Thomas Q. Boyd, of Illinois, the
Hon.
Ward H. Lamon, ex-Congressman Jere Wilson, and
Representative Adlai E. Stevenson of Illinois -- then bore the
remains to the hearse, and the lengthy cortege proceeded to the
Oak Hill Cemetery, where the remains were interred, in the
presence of the family and friends without further ceremony."
"The loved and loving brother, husband, father, friend, died
where manhood's morning almost touches noon, and while the
shadows still were falling 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 the 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 jewelled with a
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."
"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 purest
hands he faithfully discharged all public trusts."
"He was a worshipper 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 season, 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 wailing 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, mistaking the approach of
death
for the return of health, whispered with his latest breath,
'I am better now.' Let us believe, in spite of doubts and dogmas,
of fears and tears, that these 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
4.6gentler, stronger, manlier man."
THE TRIBUTE
"Dear Friends: I am going to do that which the dead oft
promised he would do for me.A
VISION
OF WAR
What patriot can read without emotion the following thrilling
epic of the civil war, delivered at a soldiers' reunion in
Indianapolis:
"The past rises before me like a dream. Again we are in the
great struggle for national life. We hear the sounds of
preparation -- the music of boisterous drums -- the silver voices
of
heroic bugles. We see thousands of assemblages, and hear the
appeals of orators. We see the pale cheeks of women, and the
flushed faces, of men; and in those assemblages we see all the
dead whose dust we have covered with flowers. We lose sight of
them no more. We are with them when they enlist in the great army
of freedom. We see them part with those they love. Some are
walking for the last time in quiet, woody places, with the
maidens they adore. We hear the whisperings and the sweet vows of
eternal love as they lingeringly part forever. Others are bending
over cradles, kissing babes that are asleep. Some are receiving the
blessings of old men. Some are parting with mothers who hold and
press them to their hearts again and again, and say nothing. Kisses
and tears, tears and kisses -- divine mingling of agony and love!
And some are talking with wives, and endeavoring with brave words,
spoken
in the old tones, to drive from their hearts the awful fear.
We see them part. We see the wife standing in the door with the
babe in her arms -- standing in the sunlight, sobbing. At the turn
of the road a hand waves -- she answers by holding high in her
loving arms the child. He is gone, and forever."
"We see them all as they march proudly away under the
flaunting flags, keeping time to the grand, wild music of war --
marching down the streets of the great cities -- through the towns
and across prairies -- down to the fields of glory, to do and to
die for the eternal right."
"We go with them, one and all. We are by their side on all the
gory fields -- in all the hospitals of pain -- on all the weary
marches. We stand guard with them in the wild storm and under the
quiet stars. We are with them in ravines running with blood -- in
the furrows of old fields. We are with them between contending
hosts, unable to move, wild with thirst, the life ebbing slowly
away among the withered leaves. We see them pierced by balls and
torn
with shells, in the trenches, by forts, and in the whirlwind
of the charge, where men become iron, with nerves of steel."
"We are with them in the prisons of hatred and famine; but
human speech can never tell what they endured."
"We are at home when the news comes that they are dead. We see
the maiden in the shadow of her first sorrow. We see the silvered
head of the old man bowed with the last grief."
"The past rises before us, and we see four millions of human
beings governed by the lash -- we see them bound hand and foot --
we hear the strokes of cruel whips -- we see the hounds tracking
women through tangled swamps. We see babes sold from the breasts of
mothers. Cruelty unspeakable! Outrage infinite!"
"Four million bodies in chains -- four million souls in
fetters. All the sacred relations of wife, mother, father and child
trampled beneath the brutal feet of might. And all this was done
under
our own beautiful banner of the free."
"The past rises before us. We hear the roar and shriek of the
bursting shell. The broken fetters fall. These heroes died. We
look. Instead of slaves we see men and women and children. The wand
of progress touches the auction-block, the slave-pen, the whipping-
post,
and we see homes and firesides and school-houses and books,
and
where
all was want and crime and cruelty and fear, we See the
faces of the free."
"These heroes are dead. They died for liberty -- they died for
us. They are at rest. They sleep in the land they made free, under
the flag they rendered stainless, under the solemn pines, the sad
hemlocks, the tearful willows and the embracing vines. They sleep
beneath the shadows of the clouds, careless alike of sunshine or of
storm, each in the windowless palace of rest. Earth may run red
with other wars -- they are at peace. In the midst of battle, in
the roar of conflict, they found the serenity of death. I have one
sentiment for soldiers living and dead: Cheers for the living;
tears
for the dead."
Excepting social letters, and memoranda found on scattered scraps of paper, he wrote little with his own hand. Nearly everything he gave for publication was dictated. His legal briefs and papers, his magazine and review articles, editorials, press interviews, monographs, speeches, lectures, -- everything he wished to say -- were delivered in faultless form through the portals of his facile lips. Where-ever he happened to be, -- in his office, at his home, on the boat, in the train, in the cab rattling through noisy streets, sitting, standing, reclining -- he spoke the splendid words that the stenographer's art caught and reproduced for him. His famous Replies to Judge Black in The North American Review were dictated at the billiard table in his home, with cue in hand. A sentence and a paragraph, then a run with the balls, -- another paragraph, another run, -- and so on to the end. His Replies to Mr. Gladstone, Dr. Field, Cardinal Manning, and other champions in the religious arena, were 'Composed under like distractions, as most would deem them. To Mr. Ingersoll, however, who had as few men ever had it, the faculty of thinking on his feet, these distractions seemed only to stimulate and concentrate his thought.
AS A CONVERSATIONALIST
In conversation, whether in private or social circles, he was
beyond expression delightful, versatile, great. The favored guests
at his fireside often found themselves dumb in his presence --
struck into listening silence -- so that only the one magnetic
voice
was heard. He was at his best in his own home circle. Here he
showed his shining self as nowhere else. Here his abandon was
complete. Here he threw off all trammels of convention, all
reserve, all consciousness of power, and spoke and acted as he
felt, -- with the exuberance of youth, forgetful of his mature
years
and ripe experience. Around his hospitable board his chosen
friends feasted on food for mind and body, heart and soul. Those
table-talks day after day, joined in by his family and guests whom
he stimulated by question and rally and the force of his genial,
gentle leadership, -- who could forget them?
And those informal Sunday evening receptions held week after week in his Washington home! Here distinguished men and women, -- scientists, scholars, philosophers, thinkers, judges, lawyers, merchants, bankers, capitalists, clerks, artists and artisans, religious and nonreligious professors, and even theologian -- saints and sinners -- gathered in his parlors and drawing-room and joined in the discussions which he led on all topics of human interest. It is fair to say that no social or intellectual functions of the day in Washington were better attended, more attractive and distinguished, or so truly cosmopolitan, as those enjoyed in the home of Colonel Robert G. Ingersoll. On one occasion no less than five Presidential aspirants mingled in the throng. It was a frequent wish of his auditors on these occasions that he had had an audience of thousands to hear him. He spoke as no man living spoke.
GREAT IN STORY-TELLING
There never was a better teller of a story than Mr.
Ingersoll. Like Lincoln, he always had his quiver full, and never
one missed its mark. He was in constant demand as an after-dinner
speaker, and the chief attraction at many a social feast and club
banquet. He knew just where and when to stop in the narration of
any fact or fancy. His faultless allegories, similes, metaphors and
epigrams were faultlessly used. As we have seen, he was also a king
in repartee. In swift reply he always returned much better than was
sent. Those rash opponents who ventured to attack him when they
thought him off his guard repented of their temerity, for they
found
him
fully armed to meet them. The retort courteous or keen,
gentle
or severe, grave or gay -- always fitting -- was ready at
command for every time and place, every season and occasion. Two
incidents only out of many need be here recalled.
On a train going through California a pompous clergyman proclaimed aloud his faith to all the travellers in the car. He passed along the aisle, and when he reached the seat in which the Colonel sat, cried out with strident voice, "The fool hath said in his heart, there is no God; thank God, I'm not a fool!" Before he could strut out, the Colonel sent the swift reply, "That depends on what the people think who know you!" At another time a pious maiden, thinking to entrap him, brought a nosegay and handing it to him suddenly said: "Colonel, who made these beautiful flowers?" "The same, my dear young lady, that made the poison of the ivy and the asp!"
HIS WEALTH OF INFORMATION
When,
or
where,
or how this full man acquired the treasures of
knowledge at his command has been the puzzle of his friends. As I
knew him and observed him he did not seem to be a great reader, or
student of books, and yet he was acquainted with most worth-while
books.
He was not a classical scholar, so-called, yet he knew the
classics. He was not a historian, yet he knew history. He was not
a scientist or philosopher, according to the schools, and held no
college diploma, yet he knew much of nearly all the sciences and
philosophies. Colleges and universities under the patronage and
control of religious denominations, he used to say were generally
institutions where "pebbles were polished and diamonds dimmed. He
often quoted Bruno, who called Oxford "the window of learning."
Nor was he a theologian, yet he knew theologies, and could and did successfully contend with the greatest in that field. He claimed that they never answered his arguments. He had such a power of ready assimilation, that everything he saw or read or heard was instantly appropriated and became his own. He seemed to forget nothing that he ever knew. He was always acquiring from countless sources of knowledge. He read with the greatest eagerness and rapidity. I have known him to glance over the pages of even metaphysical treatises, and without apparent hesitation possess himself of their contents.
HIS VERSATILITY OF TALENT
Keeping abreast of the times as he did, he knew the latest
theories, discoveries, and inventions, -- all that was going on in
the
world of science and art, of men and measures. Nothing seemed
to
escape his notice, or to be beyond his grasp. His range of
information was truly encyclopedic. It was said of him, as of
another eminent publicist -- I think it was of Col. Theodore
Roosevelt: -- "He had the greatest and most accurate knowledge on
the largest number of subjects, of any man I ever knew." He had a
mathematical knowledge that made him an adept in figures and much
more
than an amateur in astronomy. He knew the names of all the
constellations with their principal stars, and loved by night to
sweep
the heavens with his powerful telescope, and observe the
phases
of the moon and movements of the planets and their
satellites. This love of astronomy and aptness with figures, he
said, "ran in the family," was an inherited gift from his mother.
He was also a well-known student of sociology and a past-master in
domestic and political economy, a wise and far-seeing publicist and
an enlightened statesman -- an ardent Republican, but not an office
-- seeker, or politician, out for the spoils.
If his role as a lawyer required a knowledge of diseases and their symptoms and treatment, by the study of medical treatises bearing on his case he became, for the nonce, a pathologist; of surgery a surgeon; of finance a financier, -- and so with many of the applied and useful arts. The many railway, telegraph and patent suits he tried made of him a railroad organizer, director, and president, an electrician and industrial expert. He once tried a case in which the plaintiff had been injured in a railroad accident, and so astonished the Court and experts that a surgeon in attendance, surprised at his technical knowledge of anatomy, asked him when and where he had experimented, and from what institution he had graduated. His wonderful capacity for acquiring knowledge needed on any subject accounts for this versatility.
A DEVOURER OF BOOKS
While, as I have said, he did not in his later years seem to
be a great reader of books, yet in early life he had laid the
foundations well. As a boy and in his young manhood he was an
inquirer and observer. Even as a child he was a lover of books, and
later on it became with him a fascination and passion. He read
everything of value he could lay his hands on, -- knew every book
in his father's library. He read thoughtfully, voraciously,
constantly. Night after night, and all the night through, he has
told me, he has read until mentally and physically exhausted. Nor
did he wish merely to go through a book. He wanted to understand
it. He read with a purpose. He was eager to search, to find, to
know.
His thirst for knowledge was insatiate. He has said: "Banish
me from Eden when you will, but first let me eat of the fruit of
the tree of knowledge." He was hungry for facts, for truths, for
reasons. He absorbed and assimilated, combined, separated and
classified, criticized and compared until he could reach a
decision. He never left a subject until he thought he understood
it.
A WONDERFUL MEMORY
His memory, as we have noted it in his career as a lawyer, was
truly a marvelous gift. Whatever once left its impress on the
tablets of his sensitive brain seemed fixed there for all the
future, to be retained until recalled. Shakespeare and Burns were
so familiar to him that he had them by heart, as we say, and he
could
and did quote whole scenes and acts almost without an error,
as one would read it from the printed page. I have heard him say if
most of the plays of the one and poems of the other should be lost
of record, he could substantially restore them. And it was the same
with countless selections he had acquired from the world's greatest
thinkers and writers.
He almost deified Shakespeare, and among other tributes to that wonderful genius, said: "Shakespeare was an intellectual ocean, whose waves touched all the shores of thought; within which were all the tides and waves of destiny and will; over which swept all the storms of fate, ambition and revenge; upon which fell the gloom and darkness of despair and death and all the sunlight of content and love, and within which was the inverted sky lit with the eternal stars -- an intellectual ocean -- toward which all rivers ran, and from which now the isles and continents of thought receive their dew and rain."
It was a favorite saying of his, "Shakespeare is my Bible and Burns my Hymn-book."
Upon his library table he kept two magnificent folio volumes -- one of Shakespeare, the other of Burns; -- but unlike the traditional "parlor ornament! -- the fetich in so many Christian homes, -- they were there not for display, but for use, and were constantly resorted to for, reading and reference.
A FERTILE IMAGINATION
Added
to his other gifts and qualifications, natural and
acquired, and crowning them all, was his splendid imagination. This
faculty in him: was richly developed. He seemed by its power to
mount to the loftiest heights and to see into the soul and
substance of things, -- to penetrate far beyond and below all
surfaces. He has said that he shrank from passing a cemetery, --
not through fear, for there never was a more fearless soul, -- but
because beneath the mounds and monuments he could see the faces of
the dead and clothe the moldering forms with throbbing life. This
power filled in for him all vacant spaces, supplied all missing
links. Given a bone, a scale, a root, a leaf, and the man of
science will construct for you the bird, the fish, the flower and
tree
that were. So the constructive Colonel needed but the hints
and fragments of a fact to enable him to group together all related
facts
and complete the structure as it was and should be. But he
went a great way farther. With "imagination's wondrous wand," as he
styled it, and with his poetic soul, he made his tree a mighty
forest, his flower a garden of Eden without its serpent, his fish
a sporting multitude peopling happy seas, and his woods and groves
a fairy land vocal with the notes of warbling birds and teeming
with all forms of joyous life. He was a poet -- a real creator --
a
prophet of the truth and love and joy to be.
HIS EARLY RELIGIOUS TRAINING
They greatly err who think and say that Mr. Ingersoll as a
child
was not, could not have been, properly trained in religious
truths and duties. He was the son of loving and praying parents.
His father was a Presbyterian and Congregational minister, beloved
and honored by all who knew him. His sweet and noble mother died
when Robert was a babe of only two years. Her loving task fell to
the father. By precept and example he strove with all his might,
fervently invoking divine assistance, tenderly and truly to train
his
child in the way he should go, relying on the promise that when
old he would not depart from it. Robert was brought up on the Bible
and the Westminster Shorter Catechism, and taught a strict
observance of the Sabbath day. He was admonished to search the
Scriptures. He did search them, but found them wanting, and frankly
said so. They did not solve his childish doubts, answer his many
questions, or satisfy the awakening yearnings of his large and
affectionate heart. "Something wrong, somewhere," was his frequent
comment, even as a boy, as he read the Bible. His father was
troubled in spirit. He could not comprehend such skepticism in one
so
young,
-- the child of his own heart and hopes, of his own faith
and prayers. How could he, in his wildest dreams, ever have
foreseen that this bright and beautiful boy would one day ripen
into the most famous Agnostic of the century? Yet, with all his
fears
and misgivings, this good father was wise and just and broad
enough
to say: "My boy, be true to yourself; tell your honest
thought; never be a hypocrite!" He never was.
HIS FATHER'S TUTOR
As he advanced in years and "grew in wisdom and stature" he
became his father's tutor in religious research. He was to him a
veritable commentary, concordance and index of Bible texts and
passages. He discussed intelligently with him the creeds, histories
and theologies, the doctrines and dogmas of Jewish, Heathen and
Christian religions. His father was proud of him although he could
not answer him, and wept over his heterodoxy, while he could not
help admiring his wonderful defense of it. While yet a boy Robert
knew the Bible from cover to cover, having read it through more
than once, and by his gift of memory retained it. He had also gone
through the Commentaries of Scott, Henry and Clarke. He knew every
book in his father's library and could quote at will from most of
them. "Bunyan's Pilgrim's Progress" interested and its dramatic
style pleased him, while "Fox's Book of Martyrs" fascinated but
terrified him; it burned into his soul and filled his days with
fear and nights with horrid dreams. "Milton's Paradise Lost" with
its "heavenly militia," as he termed it, fed but failed to entrap
his imagination, and he said that Mr. Jenkyn needed to atone for
his book "On The Atonement." "Alleine's Alarm" did not frighten
him; "Baxter's Call" met no response from his intellect or heart,
and his "Saints' Rest" was not the kind of rest he thought he could
enjoy, "where congregations neer break up and Sabbaths have no
end," while Jonathan Edwards' frightful sermon, "Sinners in the
Hands of an Angry God," excited only his indignation, pity and
disgust.
The simple truth is that Mr. Ingersoll was an unbeliever from his childhood. He has said to me as to others, that he never remembered the time when his mind did not reject and his heart resent what he believed to be the cruelties and falsehoods of many of the Bible doctrines and narratives, and when he did not hate with all his soul the injustice and savagery of the man-made God of the Scriptures.
A WORTHY FATHER OF A NOBLE SON
He
often joined in the conversations and controversies of the
clergymen who made his father's home a favorite place of assembly.
As a youth he was remarkable for his debating powers and his
ability to define and defend his views on religion and other
subjects under discussion. His father not only respected his
convictions, but sought his opinions on disputed points of doctrine
and belief, and while he might not be able to accept his
conclusions, always accorded his son the right of private judgment
and freedom of expression. He was the worthy father of a noble son.
Long before his death, this loving and tender man who, as Mr.
Ingersoll has told me, often walked the floor at nights weeping and
agonizing over the condition of lost worlds of souls; at last,
learning "out of the mouth of his own babe and suckling," gave up
his belief in eternal torment and died abhorring it.
IN MUSIC AND THE DRAMA
As may well be inferred from what has been said, Mr. Ingersoll
was a many-sided man. Though not a musician he was a most
discriminating judge and passionate lover of music. His ear and
heart were "finely tuned to all the harmonies." He attended all the
great operas, heard all the famous songsters, and knew familiarly
many of the masters of the baton. His own home was a temple of
music
and its music-room the shrine of his dwelling. Here was his
family altar. His wife and daughters were the divinities. His two
children had been thoroughly educated in music and song, so that
under
the tenderly sweet voice of the one and the exquisitely deft
touch of the other, the happy father sat as one entranced, his
sorrows soothed, his cares dismissed, his strength renewed and his
soul satisfied. Surely never was sweeter music heard in any home
than in the home of Robert G. Ingersoll.
Having such "music in his soul" he naturally gathered about him congenial spirits. He was widely recognized as the friend and patron of singers and musicians, of artists and actors, poets and painters, and workers in every field of fine expression. Many of the brightest lights in these professions were his intimates, who sought his counsel and accepted his criticisms and suggestions on their work. He loved the drama, was the intimate of Booth and Barrett and their legal counsellor, the admired and admiring friend of Joseph Jefferson, and of nearly all the popular actors of the day. He was a contributor to the leading dramatic, musical and art journals, a frequent visitor at artists' studios, in constant demand and the chief attraction as a speaker in entertainments for the benefit of the Actors' Fund, and by voice and pen showed his sympathy with every movement for the elevation and improvement of the actors' profession.
In his musical taste he was passionately fond of Wagner, and revelled in his "music of two worlds," as he styled it. He called him "the Shakespeare of music." Beethoven's "Sweet and dim symphonies" appealed deliciously to his sympathetic ear, and indeed the great creations of most of the masters of song stirred him to the depths. They thrilled, ravished, transported him. The perfect affected him to tears. He loved in certain moods the riot of melody, the wild and chaotic chorus, the "wolf-tone" effects of full orchestration, as well as in placid moods he enjoyed the quieter melody of the solo and duet. Anton Seidl as an artist in harmony captivated him completely and won his personal regard. His memorial tribute to that great wielder of the baton is one of the finest in musical literature.
The violin was his special favorite among instruments. All night long in his home he has sat entranced under the spell of Remenyi's bow. He loved the sudden contrasts, the ascending notes of triumph to the heights of the erescendo, and then the fall to the diminuendo -- notes that softly floated down like snow-flakes and like them melted in the noiseless air. The organ, unless a master touched the keys, seldom satisfied him, -- it too often suggested ecclesiastic service and ceremony. For a like reason the tolling bell and metallic chime failed to please him. Beauty, sweetness, joy, and the married harmony of form and motion, sound and color, appealed to his aesthetic and artistic self in countless ways, and found wide open portals at every avenue of his art-attuned senses. He was not only a lover of art, but himself an artist, weaving, painting, sculpturing with words, and acting his splendid part in the drama of life, -- a drama that ended, he said, in a tragedy for all.
CONCERNING HIS LECTURING
Mr. Ingersoll, as we have seen, was first of all, a lawyer.
This profession was his early choice, and its pursuit through life
his
chief reliance. In it he rose to eminence and won enviable
recognition. But he was more than a lawyer. He was so many-sided,
so "dearly parted, so much in having, or without or in" that one
pursuit alone could not fill his measure or provide a scope wide
and
broad
and full enough for all his virile powers. His brain was
large, but his heart was larger, so that while he had views and
opinions on most subjects, he had something higher, deeper,
stronger, -- he had deep-seated convictions on the side of Truth,
Justice, Freedom, Honor, Courage, Candor of the soul, and all the
human virtues.
He was an ardent patriot. He loved country and its free institutions with a passionate fervor. He hated slavery and oppression in every form; so we early find him in the Army of Freedom and the Union where he earned his title of Colonel by raising a regiment of Illinois cavalry. But the horrors of war were too appalling to his gentle and tender spirit. He could not bear the sight of suffering even of dumb animals, and he soon resigned the sword of war to fight with tongue and pen the battles of the weak, the ignorant and enslaved. And so eloquent and convincing was this tongue, that when a prisoner in General Forrest's camp, his influence was so marked upon the Confederate troops that the General soon paroled him, saying that if he did not, Ingersoll would convert all his men into Yankees! He was everywhere and always a mighty champion of Liberty, Justice and Truth, of the rights and privileges of mankind.
"WOE IS ME IF I PREACH NOT THE GOSPEL!"
Endowed as he was, and knew himself to be, he deemed it a
crime against his nature to be silent when he felt he ought to
speak.
He used to say, with an arch smile at his use of a Scripture
quotation: "Woe is me if I preach not the Gospel!" "The average
man," he said, "is afraid to utter his real thought." "He is the
prey of Tyranny and Superstition." "The Throne and Altar were twins
-- two vultures from the same egg." "The race is under the dominion
of Fear, -- fear of men, of ghosts, of hells. I do not fear. I will
speak what I think." "Somebody ought to tell the truth about the
Bible. The preachers dare not, because they would be driven from
their pulpits. Professors in colleges dare not, because they, would
lose their salaries. Politicians dare not. They would be defeated.
Editors dare not. They would lose subscribers. Merchants dare not,
because they might lose customers. Men of fashion dare not, fearing
that
they would lose caste. Even clerks dare not, because they
might be discharged. And so, I thought I would do it myself."
Thus as a young lawyer, still studying and practicing his profession, he gave his thought to wide and yet wider themes, to large and yet larger audiences, and entered upon his triumphant lecturing career.
So many thousands have seen and heard him, in so many places and on so many subjects, that it seems hardly worth while here to speak of his manner and method on the platform -- only to say that as an orator he was the embodiment of natural ease and grace, poise and power. He used few gestures, -- was not a desk-pounder, an air-sawyer, or a stage-strutter. He was not declamatory, -- did not rant, or rage, or "tear a passion to tatters, to very rags," as the manner of some is, but following Hamlet's advice to the players, he "used all gently, acquiring and begetting a temperance that should give all smoothness." His aim was to "hold the mirror up to nature," and he did it wonderfully. In his flights of eloquence he carried his audiences with him, lifting them to the highest pinnacles of enthusiasm, or stirring them to the deepest recesses of their being. With his pathos he melted them to tears and ere the drops were dry, by his sparkling wit and humor, transformed the pearls of pity into smiles of joy, or peals of laughter. He was indeed a master-musician who played upon every human heart-string.
It was a fine study to note him in the ante-room both before and after the giving of a lecture. Before, he was eager, expectant, almost exultant at the prospect of again delivering his message. His mood was cheerful and happy, his countenance radiant with the anticipated pleasure. He seemed at peace with himself and with all the world. After, when many of his friends gathered to offer their congratulations and express their admiration, he accepted their praise with unfeigned satisfaction and the candor of a happy child pleased with the praise of a parent over some worthy performance.
It was no task for him to speak. He loved to speak. It was to him an exultation. He knew he had something to say and that he knew how to say it. He usually carried his notes to the platform. These notes were often in mere outline prepared from dictation to his secretary, but sometimes quite fully printed in large type. He was not a slave to his manuscript -- seldom followed it closely any distance. No one lecture was precisely the same in its repeated deliveries. After one or two presentations of a new lecture he had it by head and tongue and heart and, needed no prompting thereafter.
ALL MASTERPIECES
The lectures that perhaps most fully satisfied him were: "The
Liberty of Man, Woman and Child," "The Gods," "The Ghosts,"
"Orthodoxy," "Some Mistakes of Moses," "Which Way?" "Myth and
Miracle," "What Must We do to be Saved?" "The Great Infidels,"
"Some Reasons Why"' "About the Holy Bible" and "Shakespeare," --
although he rarely expressed a preference, simply accepted the
'Verdict of his friends.' The truth is, that every one of his more
than sixty famous lectures and his hundreds of great speeches,
controversies, interviews, tributes, orations, prose-poems and
legal addresses was a masterpiece. The "Liberty" lecture, however,
was received with such popular acclaim, and was so frequently
demanded, that he was disposed to regard it as probably the most
effective of his efforts.
On one occasion after its delivery in Washington, a United States Senator sought him and said: "Colonel, you have converted me. For years I have been estranged from my only daughter because she did not marry to please me, but now I shall go to her to-night, and beg her forgiveness for allowing a selfish pride to keep her from my arms and heart!" Father and daughter were reconciled, and the peace and joy then born in a happy home remained a seal to the efficacy of the Colonel's teachings. Some said to him: "That is a great sermon of yours, Colonel," referring to the "Liberty" lecture.. Others said, "What a great preacher he would have made!" He never considered the remark a compliment.
ATTACKING CHERISHED BELIEFS
His Christian admirers sometimes said: "Colonel, why don't you
moderate your expressions, qualify your speech, and be more careful
not to offend the susceptibilities of many of your hearers, -- your
views would be so much better received even if they were not
adopted?"
"I'll tell you why. I do not attack persons, but their
superstitions. I deal with opinions, not with those who hold them.
I do not war against men. I do not war against persons. I war
against certain doctrines that I believe to be wrong. But I give to
every human being every right that I claim for myself.
"I have not the slightest malice, no hate. A victor never
feels malice. I tell my honest thought, my sincere belief, my
earnest convictions."
THE MERCENARY BOGY
His enemies called him mercenary, saying that he lectured only
for money, and cited the unselfish example of the priests and
preachers who gave the gospel freely, "without money and without
price."
To such he replied:
"Is it possible that, after preachers
have had the field for eighteen hundred years, the way to make
money is to attack the clergy? Is this intended as a slander
against me, or against the ministers?"
"The trouble is that my arguments cannot be answered. All the
preachers in the world cannot prove that slavery is better than
liberty. They cannot show that all have not an equal right to
think. They cannot show that all have not an equal right to express
their thoughts. They cannot show that a decent God will punish a
decent man for making the best guess he can."
"Not
one of the orthodox ministers dares to preach what he
thinks
if he knows a majority of his congregation thinks otherwise.
He knows that every member of his church stands guard over his
brain with a creed, like a club, in his hand. He knows that he is
not expected to search after the truth, but that he is employed to
defend the creed. Every pulpit is a pillory, in which stands a
hired culprit, defending the justice of his own imprisonment."
"I do not depend upon lecturing for my living. I am free, and
my audiences are free. They are under no obligation to attend. They
want to hear me and cheerfully pay the price. If I did not charge
for admission, Christians would say, as some envious one have said,
that
only the lowest and vilest in a community flock to hear me.
Just the contrary, of course, was true, and these very slanderers
-- many of them -- wrote from every part of the land begging him to
lecture for the benefit of this or that church or "cause" and give
them the "proceeds."
Replying further to those who said, "He can afford to preach his blasphemy, -- it brings him applause as well as pecuniary reward," he use to say that it was the greatest of compliments, -- an admission -- that his views were getting popular and worth paying to hear. As we have seen, he was not an avaricious man, but magnificently otherwise. He was ever more a spendthrift than a miser. There never lived a more prodigally generous soul. There was not a mean or sordid drop of blood in all his veins. Nor did he care for mere personal popularity, -- avoided rather than courted it. He did delight in noting year by year the growing acceptance of his teachings. Once, after a visit to New England, he said: "If I had spoken as freely in Salem thirty years ago, as I have spoken in Salem to-night, they would have burned me at the stake." He was fond of saying that since he had been trying to extinguish the flames, the climate of hell had grown perceptibly cooler.
WHAT HIS VIEWS COST HIM
The world little knows how much it cost Mr. Ingersoll to speak
his honest thought, to utter the sincere and profound convictions
of his conscience, the voice of his inmost soul. If sacrifice of
earthly honors and emoluments, of place and power, -- prizes as
dear to most men as their lives, -- is evidence of sincerity and
devotion to principle, Mr. Ingersoll was sublimely sincere,
unselfish, and self-sacrificing, and truthful history will so
record him.
His heterodoxy cost him the Governorship of Illinois. A delegation made up of friends and admirers of both political parties, urged his acceptance of the nomination, which meant certain election, but coupled the offer with the condition that he pledge himself not to touch on religious topics during the campaign. He declined the nomination. He would have made an ideal Governor. His large acquaintance with public men and measures, his own experience as a public official -- as Attorney-General of the State -- his fame as a campaign orator, his recognized ability and integrity, his ardent patriotism and fearless advocacy of the rights of man, and his world-wide human sympathies, -- all his great gifts and endowments, -- marked him as one worthy of the highest civic honors.
But he did not covet office. He rejected all overtures in that direction. His friends often broached the subject. He refused to consider it. He was offered the post of Minister to Germany in 1877, but declined it. In 1882 a delegation in Washington waited on him seeking his consent to be a candidate for the Presidency of the United States. He declined the honor, saying that on no account would he permit the use of his name. "I do not wish," he said, "to bring the heat and rancor of religious discussion and dissension into polities." No office would have been too great or high for him to reach and fill had he consented to conceal his real thought, to be a time-server and a hypocrite.
NOT A LEADER
He, in fact, aspired to no personal leadership of any kind.'
He asked for no "disciples," sought no "followers." He wanted men
to think his way, but to carry out their convictions in their own
way; he would not lead them. He was not a proselytist or a
propagandist. He could have founded a school, a sect, a system. He
would not. He disliked and discourage the use of the term
"Ingersollism" that some applied to his views, and disavowed and,
so far
as he could, prevented the spread of it. He was, and wanted
to be known as, an "Individualist."
He did not fully favor organizations on the lines of religious or anti-religious belief; was not always in sympathy with Freethought or Liberal organizations, as such. Although he agreed in the main with their principles and aims he could not always endorse or commend their methods, and because of such disagreement at one time resigned the presidency of the Liberal League. His trouble with these societies was that like most fraternal associations, with all their merits and uses, they tended to foster exclusiveness, class distinctions and sectarianism. He did not believe in caste, he did not divide society into sheep and goats, good and bad, sinners and saints, but into plain men and women without their emblems or regalia. Many of his friends thought him wrong in this attitude of aloofness, considered him unduly sensitive and ideal, but he was satisfied with his ideal; he only wished as an individual unit in society to act his own part well, to think and speak and act from the best and highest in him, and to help others do the same. While not condemning orders and unions and fraternities, but recognizing their value and the need of combination and cooperation to effect certain ends for the general welfare, he yet felt that in the individual lay the real power to improve and regenerate society. His broader membership was with the race. Each man he held a brother, if he could find in him a man, and he despised no one, however lowly, for the mere accident of birth or circumstance.
His charity and compassion were unbounded. He could see and condone the faults and frailties of others. "He does as he must," was his theorem explaining all human action. He was broad and universal enough to announce this splendid creed: "The firmament inlaid with stars is the dome of the real cathedral. The interpreters of nature are the true and only priests. In the great creed are all the truths that lips have uttered, and in the real litany will be found all the ecstasies and aspirations of the soul, all dreams of joy, all hopes for nobler, fuller life. The real church, the real edifice, is adorned and glorified with all that Art has done. In the real choir is all the thrilling music of the world, and in the starlit aisles have been, and are, the grandest souls of every land and clime.
"There is no darkness but ignorance."
"Let us flood the world with intellectual light."
His attitude concerning freedom of thought, and its expression, he gives us in these emphatic words, taken from the opening of his "Liberty" lecture:
"There is no slavery but ignorance. Liberty is the child of
intelligence."
"Only a few years ago there was a great awakening of the human
mind.
Men
began to inquire by what right a crowned robber made them
work for him. The man who asked this question was called a traitor.
Others asked by what right does a robed hypocrite rule my thought?
Such men were called infidels. The priest said, and the king said,
where is this spirit of investigation to stop? They said then and
they say now, that it is dangerous for man to be free. I deny it.
Out on the intellectual ocean there is room enough for every sail.
In the intellectual air there is space enough for every wing."
"The
man who does not do his own thinking is a slave, and is
a
traitor to himself and to his fellow-men."
"Every man should stand under the blue and stars, under the
infinite flag of nature, the peer of every other man."
"Standing in the presence of the Unknown, all have the same
right to think, and all are equally interested in the great
questions of origin and destiny. All I claim, all I plead for, is
liberty of thought and expression. That is all."
"I do not pretend to tell all the truth. I do not claim that
I have floated level with the heights of thought, or that I have
descended to the very depths of things. I simply claim that what
ideas I have, I have a right to express; and that any man who
denies that right to me is an intellectual thief and robber. That
is all."
"I
swear that while I live I will do what little I can to
preserve and to augment the liberties of man, woman, and child."
"It is
a question of justice, of mercy, of honesty, of
intellectual development. If there is a man in the world who is not
willing to give to every human being every right he claims for
himself, he is just so much nearer a barbarian than I am. It is a
question of honesty. The man who is not willing to give to every
other
the same intellectual rights he claims for himself, is
dishonest, selfish, and brutal."
"This
is my doctrine: Give every other human being every right
you
claim
for yourself. Keep your mind open to influences of
nature. Receive new thoughts with hospitality. Let us advance."
"As far as I am concerned I wish to be out on the high seas.
I wish
to take my chances with wind, and wave, and star. And I had
rather
go down in the glory and grandeur of the storm, than rot in
any orthodox harbor."
"As a man develops, he places a greater value upon his own
rights. Liberty becomes a grander and diviner thing. As he values
his own rights he begins to value the rights of others. And when
all men give to all others all the rights they claim for
themselves, this world will be civilized."
"We have, advanced. We have reaped the benefit of every
sublime and heroic self-sacrifice, of every divine and brave act;
and we should endeavor to hand the torch to the next generation,
having added a little to the intensity and glory of the flame."
"With every drop of my blood I hate and execrate every form of
tyranny, every form of slavery. I hate dictation. I love liberty."
"What
do I
mean by liberty? By physical liberty I mean the
right to do anything which does not interfere with the happiness of
another. By intellectual liberty I mean the right to think right
and the right to think wrong. Thought is the means by which we
endeavor to arrive at truth."
"Should I not give the real transcript of my mind? Or should
I turn hypocrite and pretend what I do not feel, and hate myself
forever after for being a cringing coward."
"Above all creeds, above all religions, after all, is that
divine thing, -- Humanity; and now and then in shipwreck on the
wide, wild sea, or mid the rocks and breakers of some cruel shore,
or where the serpents of flame writhe and hiss, some glorious
heart, some chivalric soul does a deed that glitters like a star,
and
gives
the lie to all the dogmas of superstition. All these
frightful doctrines have been used to degrade and to enslave
mankind."
"Away, forever away, with the creeds and books and forms and
laws and religions that take from the soul liberty and reason. Down
with the idea that thought is dangerous! Perish the infamous
doctrine that man can have property in man. Let us resent with
indignation every effort to put a chain upon our minds. If there is
no God, certainly we should not bow and cringe and crawl. If there
is a
God, there should be no slave."
"O Liberty, thou art the god of my idolatry! Thou art the only
deity that hateth bended knees. In thy vast and unwalled temple,
beneath the roofless dome, star-gemmed and luminous with suns, thy
worshipers stand erect! They do not cringe, or crawl, or bend their
foreheads to the earth. The dust has never borne the impress of
their lips. Upon thy altars mothers do not sacrifice their babes,
nor men their rights. Thou askest naught from man except the things
that
good men hate -- the whip, the chain, the dungeon key. Thou
hast no popes, no priests, who stand between their fellow-men and
thee. Thou carest not for foolish forms, or selfish prayers. At thy
sacred shrine hypocrisy does not bow, virtue does not tremble,
superstition's feeble tapers do not burn, but Reason holds aloft
her inextinguishable torch whose holy light will one day flood the
world."
TRUTH
He exalted Truth -- pure, unadulterated, unmasked. "Sacred are
the lips," he said, "from which has issued only truth."
"Truth is the intellectual wealth of the world."
"The noblest of occupations is to search for truth."
"Truth is the foundation, the *superstructure, and the
glittering dome of progress."
"Truth is the mother of joy. Truth civilizes, ennobles, and
purifies. The grandest ambition that can enter the soul is to know
the truth."
"Truth gives man the greatest power for good. Truth is sword
and shield. It is the sacred light of the soul."
"The
man who finds a truth lights a torch."
"Sacred are the lips from which has issued only truth. Over
all wealth, above all station, above the noble, the robed and
crowned, rises the sincere man. Happy is the man who neither paints
nor patches, veils nor veneers! Blessed is he who wears no mask."
LOVE
He exalted and enthroned the god of Love, -- of sacred human
love. In words that elsewhere have no counterpart, he has embalmed
for us his thought in this marvelous piece of literary amber:
"Love
is the only bow on Life's dark cloud. It is the Morning
and the Evening Star. It shines upon the cradle of the babe, and
sheds
its radiance on the quiet tomb. It is the mother of Art --
inspirer of poet, patriot and philosopher. It is the air and light
of every heart -- builder of every home -- kindler of every fire on
every hearth. It was the first to dream of immortality. It fills
the
world with melody, for music is the voice of Love. Love is the
magician, the enchanter, that changes worthless things to joy, and
makes right royal kings and queens of common clay. It is the
perfume of that wondrous flower -- the heart -- and without that
sacred passion, that divine swoon, we are less than beasts -- but
with it, earth is heave and we are gods."
LIFE
Has any one but the immortal bard ever produced a parallel to
this living portrait of human life, -- Of his own life, -- from the
cradle
to the grave?
"Born
of love and hope, of ecstacy and pain, of agony and
fear, of tears and joy -- dower with the wealth of two united
hearts
-- held in happy arms, with lips upon life's drifted font
blue-veined and fair, where perfect peace finds perfect form --
rocked
by willing feet and wooed to shadowy shores of sleep by
siren mother singing soft and low-looking with wonder's wide and
startled eyes at common things of life and day -- taught by want
and wish and contact with the things that touch the dimpled flesh
of babes -- lured by light and flame, and charmed by color's
wondrous robes -- learning the use of hands and feet, and by the
love of mimicry beguiled to utter speech -- releasing prisoned
thoughts from crabbed and curious marks on soiled and tattered
leaves
-- puzzling the brain with crooked numbers and their
changing, tangled worth -- and so through years of alternating day
and night, until the captive grows familiar with the chains and
walls
and limitations of a life."
"And time runs on in sun and shade, until the one of all the
world is wooed and won, and all the lore of love is taught and
learned again. Again a home is built with the fair chamber wherein
faint dreams, like cool and shadowy vales divide the billowed hours
of love. Again the miracle of a birth -- the pain and joy, the kiss
of welcome and the cradle -- song drowning the, drowsy prattle of
a babe."
"And then the sense of obligation and of wrong -- pity for
those
who toil and weep -- tears for the imprisoned and despised --
love for the generous dead, and in the heart the rapture of a high
resolve."
"And then ambition, with its lust of pelf and place and power,
longing to put upon its breast distinction's worthless badge. Then
keener thoughts of men, and eyes that see behind the smiling mask
of craft -- flattered no more by the obsequious cringe of gain and
greed -- knowing the uselessness of hoarded gold -- of honor bought
from those who charge the usury of self-respect -- of power that
only bends a coward's knees and forces from the lips of fear the
lies of praise. Knowing at last the unstudied gesture of esteem,
the reverent eyes made rich with honest thought, and holding high
above
all
other things -- high as hope's great throbbing star above
the darkness of the dead -- the love of wife and child and friend."
"Then locks of gray, and growing love of other days and
half-remembered things -- then holding withered hands of those who
first held his, while over dim and loving eyes death softly presses
down the lids of rest."
"And
so, locking in marriage vows his children's hands and
crossing others on the breasts of peace, with daughter's babes upon
his knees, the white hair mingling with the gold, he journeys on
from day to day to that horizon where the dusk is waiting for the
night.
-- At last, sitting by the holy hearth of home as evenings'
embers change from red to gray, he falls asleep within the arms of
her he worshiped and adored, feeling upon his pallid lips love's
last and holiest kiss."
"Nor
has this autograph of his own life ever been supplemented
with a finer touch than he gives us in these lines: "Life is a
shadowy, strange, and winding road on which we travel for a little
way -- a few short steps -- just from the cradle, with its lullaby
of love, to the low and quiet way-side inn, where all at last must
sleep, and where the only salutation is -- Goodnight!" Or that
other peerless paragraph, which I here re-quote, from the tribute
to his brother Ebon: "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
wailing 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."
HOPE
Of Hope he has beautifully said: "Hope is the only bee that
makes honey without flowers."
"Hope
is the consolation of the world."
"The wanderers hope for home. -- Hope builds the house and
plants the flowers and fills the air with song."
"The sick and suffering hope for health. -- Hope gives them
health and paints the roses in their cheeks."
"The lonely, the forsaken, hope for love. -- Hope brings the
lover to their arms. They feel the kisses on their eager lips."
"The poor in tenements and huts, in spite of rags and hunger,
hope for wealth. -- Hope fills their thin and trembling hands with
gold."
"The dying hopes that death is but another birth, and Love
leans above the pallid face and whispers, 'We shall meet again.'"
"Let us hope, that if there be a God, he is wise and good."
"Let us hope that if there be another life, it will bring
peace
and joy to all the children of men."
"And
let us hope that this poor earth on which we live, may be
a
perfect world -- a world without a crime -- without a tear."
Of the hope of a future life he said: "The idea of immortality, that like a sea has ebbed and flowed in the human heart, with its countless waves of hope and fear beating against the shores and rocks of time and fate, was not born of any book, nor of any creed, nor of any religion. It was born of human affection, and it will continue to ebb and flow beneath the mists and clouds of doubt and darkness as long as love kisses the lips of death. It is the rainbow, Hope, shining upon the tears of grief."
HOME
Who, with lip or pen or brush, save only Robert Burns, has
ever given us as graphic or exalted pictures of the fireside as
Robert
G. Ingersoll? He glorified, even as he exemplified, the joys
and virtues of domestic life. He said, "The home where virtue
dwells with love is like a lily with a heart of fire -- the fairest
flower
in all the world." "The holiest temple beneath the stars is
a home that love has built. And the holiest altar in all the wide
world is the fireside around which gather father and mother and the
sweet babes."
"If in this world there is anything splendid, it is a home
where
all are equals."
"Around the fireside cluster the private and the public
virtues of our race."
"The home, after all, is the unit of civilization, of good
government."
"Without the family relation there is no life worth living.
Every good government is made up of good families."
"Nothing is more important to America than that the babes of
America should be born around the fireside of home."
"If
upon
this earth we ever have a glimpse of heaven, it is
when we pass a home in winter, at night, and through the windows,
the curtains drawn aside, we see the family about the pleasant
hearth; the old lady knitting; the cat playing with the yarn; the
children wishing they had as many dolls or dollars or knives or
somethings, as there are sparks going out to join the roaring
blast; the father reading and smoking, and the clouds rising like
incense from the altar of domestic joy. I never passed such a house
without feeling that I had received a benediction."
"Honor, place, fame, glory, riches -- they are ashes, smoke,
dust, disappointment, unless there is somebody in the world you
love, somebody who loves you; unless there is some place that you
can call home, some place where you can feel the arms of children
around your neck, some place that is made absolutely, sacred by the
love of others."
AMBITION
Mr. Ingersoll was ambitious. He considered true ambition to be
the father of progress. Every man, he said, should have a worthy
ideal, and strive to attain it by all the best and highest in him.
But his ambition was not for place or power, -- he did not want to
rule anybody. He craved no laurels won on fields of conquest or
aggression. His ideals were higher. His goal was human happiness --
"the greatest good of the greatest number," and he welcomed and
extolled everything that contributed to it. He sought the richer
prizes
of life in the private and civic virtues -- in the fields of
art and thought, invention and discovery, and in the fruits of
skilful industry of hand and brain. Above all, he placed the
aristocracy of the fireside, and esteemed the kind and just man,
the loving father and husband, the peer of prince and potentate. He
loved to quote these lines of Burns on domestic felicity: "To make
a happy fireside clime, For weans and wife, Is the true pathos and
sublime Of human life."
And by way of contrast he paints for us this vivid picture of Napoleon the Great and the humble but happy French peasant:
"A little while ago, I stood by the grave of the old Napoleon
-- a magnificent tomb of gilt and gold, fit almost for a deity dead
-- and gazed upon the sarcophagus of rare and nameless marble,
where rest at last the ashes of that restless man. I leaned over
the balustrade and thought about the career of the greatest soldier
of the modern world."
"I saw him walking upon the banks of the Seine, contemplating
suicide. I saw him at Toulon -- I saw him putting down the mob in
the streets of Paris -- I saw him at the head of the army of Italy
-- I saw him crossing the bridge of Lodi with the tri-color in his
hand --
I saw
him in Egypt in the shadows of the Pyramids -- I saw
him conquer the Alps and mingle the eagles of France with the
eagles
of the crags. I saw him at Marengo -- at Ulm and Austerlitz.
I saw
him in Russia, where the infantry of the snow and the cavalry
of the wild blast scattered his legions like winter's withered
leaves.
I saw
him at Leipsic in defeat and disaster -- driven by a
million bayonets back upon Paris -- clutched like a wild beast --
banished to Elba. I saw him escape and retake an empire by the
force of his genius. I saw him upon the frightful field of
Waterloo, where Chance and Fate combined to wreck the fortunes of
their former king. And I saw him at St. Helena, with his hands
crossed behind him, gazing out upon the sad and solemn sea."
"I thought of the orphans and widows he had made -- of the
tears that had been shed for his glory, and of the only woman who
ever loved him, pushed from his heart by the cold hand of ambition.
And I said, I would rather have been a French peasant and worn
wooden shoes. I would rather have lived in a hut with a vine
growing over the door, and the grapes growing purple in the kisses
of the Autumn sun. I would rather have been that poor peasant, with
my
loving wife by my side, knitting as the day died out of the sky
-- with my children upon my knees and their arms about me -- I
would rather have been that man and gone down to the tongueless
silence of the dreamless dust, than to have been that imperial
impersonation of force and murder, known as Napoleon the Great."
SCIENCE
Everywhere and always he glorified the Deity of Science --
child of the blessed Trinity, Reason, Observation and Experience.
His
works abound in eloquent praise of its achievements. Among
other passages he gives us this:
"Science took a handful of sand, constructed a telescope, and
with it explored the starry depths of heaven. Science wrested from
the gods their thunderbolts; and now, the electric spark, freighted
with thought and love, flashes under all the waves of the sea.
Science took a tear from the cheek of unpaid labor, converted it
into steam and created a giant that turns with tireless arm the
countless wheels of toil."
"Science is the providence of man, the worker of true
miracles, of real wonders. Science has 'read a little in Nature's
infinite book of secrecy.' Science knows the circuits of the winds,
the courses of the stars. Fire is his servant, and lightning his
messenger. Science freed the slaves and gave liberty to their
masters. Science taught men to enchain, not his fellows, but the
forces
of nature, forces that have no backs to be scarred, no limbs
for chains to chill and eat, forces that have no hearts to break,
forces that never know fatigue, forces that shed no tears. Science
is the great physician. His touch has given sight. He has made the
lame to leap, the deaf to hear, the dumb to speak, and in the
pallid face his hand has set the rose of health. Science has given
his beloved sleep and wrapped in happy dreams the throbbing nerves
of pain. Science is the destroyer of disease, builder of happy
homes, the preserver of life and love. Science is the teacher of
every virtue, the enemy of every vice. Science has given the true
basis of morals, the origin and office of conscience, revealed the
nature
of obligation, of duty, of virtue in its highest, noblest
forms, and has demonstrated that true happiness is the only
possible good. Science has slain the monsters of superstition, and
destroyed the authority of inspired books. Science has read the
records of the rocks, records that priestcraft cannot change, and
on his wondrous scales has weighed the atom and the star."
"Science has founded the only true religion. Science is the
only Savior of this world."
And so
I might go on quoting and quoting. It is difficult to
forbear. It is a feast, mental and spiritual, to sit at the banquet
spread
so bountifully for us in the thirteen beautiful Volumes
containing the published works of Mr. Ingersoll in their "Dresden"
setting, -- so-call after the little village in New York State
which
was the author's birthplace. I am tempted to linger at the
feast
for more of the delicious bits of poetry, philosophy,
feeling, wit, wisdom, humor and loving-kindness that abound on
every page and in almost every line. The limits of this sketch
forbid the indulgence. What he has said on Education, Art, Science,
-- on Poetry Music and Fiction, -- on Justice, Liberty, Equality
and the Rights of Man, -- On Worship, Reverence and True Religion,
-- on Orthodoxy and Agnosticism, -- on Government, Finance,
Domestic and Political Economy, and on a thousand other living
human topics -- for he has vibrated every chord -- would take many
more books to hold, and every book a glittering mine."
On the other hand, when he considered the beautiful, good and true; the sunshine and the flowers, the blossoming spring and ripening harvest; the warm and fructifying showers, the cool and shady glens, the vine-clad hills and richly verdant vales and all the varying charms of Nature in her gentler moods; when he saw the roses on the cheeks of health, heard the songs of happy birds and hum of busy bees in sweet pursuit, and merry shouts of children at their play; when he saw the many open hands of sympathy and aid, the generous and noble deeds of great heroic souls, the glorious triumphs of genius in fields of art and song, the wonderful achievements of science in invention and discovery and the many marvelous products of industrial skill; and when he thought of happy homes and loving hearts and helpful hands through all the years, -- when he looked and thought on these he hoped, he dreamed, he prophesied, a brighter future for his race. He believed the world was growing better, freer, happier, every day, and he was doing what he could to make it so. In prophetic vision he saw "Our country filled with happy homes, with firesides of content, -- the foremost land of all the earth."
Looking into the future with unclouded eye, he said:
"I see
a world where thrones have crumbled and where kings are
dust.
The aristocracy of idleness has perished from the earth.
"I see
a world without a slave. Man at last is free. Nature's
forces have by Science been enslaved. Lightning and light, wind and
wave, frost and flame, and all the secret, subtle powers of earth
and air are the tireless toilers for the human race.
"I see
a world at peace, adorned with every form of art, with
music's myriad voices thrilled, while lips are rich with words of
love and truth; -- a world in which no exile sighs, no prisoner
mourns; -- a world on which the gibbet's shadow does not fall; --
a world where labor reaps its full reward; where work and worth go
hand in hand; where the poor girl trying to win bread with the
needle
-- the needle that has been called 'the asp for the breast
of the poor,' -- is not driven to the desperate choice of crime or
death,
of suicide or shame.
"I see
a world without the beggar's outstretched palm, the
miser's heartless, stony stare, the piteous wail of want, the livid
lips of lies, the cruel eyes of scorn.
"I see
a race without disease of flesh or brain, -- shapely
and
fair, -- the married harmony of form and function, -- and, as
I look, life lengthens, joy deepens, love canopies the earth; and
over
all, in the great dome, shines the eternal star of human
hope."
HIS INTELLECTUAL INTIMATES
Mr. Ingersoll dwelt with all the great and noble souls that
ever lived. They were his acquaintances, his friends, his
intimates. With them he held constant mental intercourse. He
studied their words and works, admired and eulogized their lofty
deeds, their high ideals. He rescued from the obloquy of spite and
hate the illustrious names of noble martyrs to the truth, of whom
the
world
was not worthy, -- the names of Bruno and Spinoza,
Voltaire and Paine, Hume and Elizur Wright, with those of other
great infidels and reformers of their day and time. He gloried in
the fame of all the great and good scientists and philosophers,
philanthropists and patriots who, in the realms of thought, and by
heroic deeds in fields of action, have enlarged, enriched and
ennobled life, -- names that were ever in his mind and often on his
lips of praise, -- names that will not die, -- the names of Darwin,
Huxley, Spencer and Tyndall; of Humboldt and Haeckel; of Socrates,
Plato
and Epictetus; of Buddha, Brahma and Confucius, Aristotle and
Aurelius; of Lincoln and Washington, Franklin and Jefferson; of
Draper and Gibbon; of Buckle and Locke and Lecky; of Wilberforce,
Howard, Burke and Bright; of Kossuth, Lafayette and Rochambeau; of
Grant
and Sherman and Sheridan, Farragut and Ericsson -- with other
heroes, in great strifes for the Right and the Rights of Man.
In the realms of space he took his flights with Newton and Kepler, Copernicus and Galileo, Herschel and Laplace, with Proctor and Mitchell, and other dwellers in the infinite skies, companions of the stars, who "drew from them their secrets and told them down to men." He sailed the unknown seas with Columbus and the Cabots, with Magellan and the other brave mariners of the dawn, and with them landed on the shores of a new and wide and glorious world.
He rejoiced and shared in the inventions and discoveries of Stephenson and Watt, of Guttenberg and Arkwright, of Galvani and Marconi, of Morse and Field, of Edison and Bell, and all the minds whose thought has widened out the world to commerce, fellowship and final peace. And above all, and before all, he placed his Shakespeare among the immortals, with Burns singing by his side the sweetest of Nature's songs. He believed that George Eliot, Harriet Martineau and Mrs. Browning were the greatest of female thinkers and writers of the English world, and that Charles Dickens was the greatest novelist.
He was strongly emotional in temperament. A man of his fine feeling and tender susceptibility could not be otherwise. With such a nature, joined to a clear judgment and keen appreciation of the beautiful and great in art and men, it is small wonder that he was the ardent admirer of his intellectual comrades, and in eloquent eulogy extolled their words and works. He was enraptured with the music of Wagner, Beethoven, Verdi and Schubert; devoted friend of those mimic artists who held the mirror for him on the stage, -- his Forrests, Booths and Barretts, and his Rip Van Winkle -- Jeffersons. He exalted, if he could only hope to emulate, the silver tongues of his brother orators, the Ciceros, Demosthenes' Lincolns, Phillips' and Beechers -- and who will say he was not the worthy peer of them all?
He held in very high regard those masters of the brush who painted his pictures for him, his Angelos and Raphaels, Rembrandts and Corots, and, in truth, all the other shining stars in his heavens -- the writers, singers, sculptors, artists and artisans -- a glorious company -- performers with him in the wonderful drama who by their genius have added to the beauty, worth and joy of life. His companionship was with them all, and he had hope, he said, for the race that could produce and admire, exalt and emulate such souls.
HIS PRACTICAL PHILANTHROPY
Mr. Ingersoll never lost sight of his kinship with men.
Recognizing the grades and classes of humanity, he was ready at all
times to meet the demands of human sympathy and brotherhood.
Knowing sadly enough the many impositions practiced by the unworthy
poor, nevertheless, his heart and hand instinctively opened to the
appeal
of suffering and want. His quick sympathies and generous
impulses guided him, and were for him better guides than cold and
calculating judgment. He did not stop to inquire, to investigate,
-- he gave. He relieved the present necessity, and did not lecture
or
preach
to any recipient of his bounty. He did not reproach the
weak,
the ignorant, or depraved, -- he pitied and forgave. His
attitude toward the sinful and sorrowful was ever like that of the
Peasant of Palestine: "Neither do, I condemn thee."
He gave freely of the treasures of his mind. He counseled, criticized and encouraged many in their literary and artistic aspirations. His home and office were often like editorial sanctums, -- piled with authors' manuscripts submitted for his opinion and revision. Scores of introductions, reviews of books, plays and poems, were written by him for those who requested it. Recognized as an art connoisseur of fine perception and rare judgement, painters and sculptors submitted their work to his inspection. He welcomed and aided them.
"LET US SMOKE IN THIS WORLD"
Commercial travellers were fond of him and he of them. The
"smoker" in the Pullman car, the hotel lobby and his private room
were mildly invaded by them, seeking his acquaintance and regard.
Once in the Southern Hotel in Saint Louis a young man told his tale
of discouragement. "I am travelling for a tobacco house," he said,
"and
have
been in very poor luck, -- haven't made a decent living
for my wife and little family; won't you allow my firm to name a
brand of cigars for you; I'm sure they'd sell like hot cakes?" "No
objection, if you make it a good, honest cigar." "Will you give me
your photograph, and permit us to get out a handsome lithograph to
advertise the brand?" "No objection, if you make it a real portrait
and not
a daub." "Once more, Colonel, will you give me a
'sentiment' to accompany the brand?" "Very well, how will this do:
Let us smoke in this world -- not in the next?" The young man went
on his way rejoicing. Two years after he came from New York to
Washington and in grateful terms thanked the Colonel for his
goodness. "The cigar has sold all over the country," he said, "and
my commissions have amounted to hundreds and hundreds of dollars;
in fact, Colonel, you have put me on my feet and in the way to
comfort and success in life."
"GOING TO DENVER"
At another time, Mr. Ingersoll was traveling with a party of
capitalists who with him were inspecting cattle ranches in New
Mexico. They were in a private car going to Denver. One evening
after dinner, while they were enjoying their cigars, the conductor
announced, "Gentlemen, a tramp has curled himself up on the rear
platform of your car; shall I stop the train and put him off?"
"Certainly," replied the leader of the party, a man many times a
millionaire, "put him off, and do it without ceremony." "You will
do no such thing," quickly interrupted Colonel Ingersoll; "Let him
alone,
he is doing no harm." "But he's an intruder, stealing a
ride,
and how do you know he isn't a 'road-agent,' with accomplices
further on?" "No matter, let him be; I will go and speak to him."
Accompanied by the writer, he went to the rear platform. The man at
once begged pardon for his intrusion, said that necessity alone
impelled him, that he was out of work and out of money, that he was
a good mechanic and wanted to go, to Denver, where he hoped to get
employment. "Don't apologize or explain any further; I understand;"
said the Colonel. "I have been hard up myself. Are you hungry."
"Very." "Come with me;" and calling to the cook he said: "Give this
man all he wants to eat," and turning to his astonished guest,
"When you're through eating here's a good smoke for you," handing
him a perfecto. "And here's a little boost for you when you get to
Denver," drawing from his pocket a ten dollar greenback. "Never
mind,"
-- noticing a look of hesitation, -- "it's all right, good
luck,
and
don't go out on the platform again; sit on this
camp-stool till you reach Denver." Returning, he quietly resumed
his seat with the party. "Well," asked the capitalist, "how about
your
hobo guest; have you invited him to keep us company the rest
of the way?" "Yes; to Denver." "I am surprised at you, Colonel;
here you are, a distinguished lawyer, -- a railroad lawyer, at