of it without showing any open disrespect to the House or his party associates, put the bill to a vote. The effect which its adoption produced upon public opinion need not be here detailed.

CHAPTER III.

PERSONAL TRAITS AND CHARACTERISTICS.

THIS seems an appropriate place to speak of some of those elements of character which have given Mr. Blaine a general popularity very rare in the case of one so aggressive and so devoted to principle.

One of these traits for which he has not been generally credited, though one of the most attractive, is his keen humor. It would be strange if a man of such wide and varied gifts lacked this one in his make-up, but Mr. Blaine has always kept his nimble wit in such subjection to his more solid qualities that he has wholly escaped the dangerous reputation of the jester, and in public life only the lambent play of a sarcasm, as fleet as lightning, gives token of an almost steady illumination that is reserved for the amenities of private life.

Intimacy with Mr. Blaine would well repay a Boswell or a gleaner of table-talk, but his published speeches and debates would have to be carefully searched for the quick flashes of merriment which discomfited a troublesome adversary, or established the orator's position triumphantly,

and then they would suffer by being detached from the context and the occasion. Mr. Blaine's characteristic readiness and decision of speech are well exhibited in all of them.

He has a fund of quaint anecdotes, almost equal to that of President Lincoln himself, which he can tell with inimitable effect, or use briefly to clinch an argument or illustrate a point.

In a debate with Senator Thurman over the troublesome question of the debt of the Pacific Railroads, Mr. Blaine remarked: "The Senator says that if they would agree to pay $10,000,000 a year he would not make a conclusive bargain as respects the debt. It does seem to me, with entire respect for the Senator, that he has seemed to place himself in the position of the man in the story who was so contrary that he would not allow himself to do as he had a mind to."

And further on he drew the additional parallel : "If we let go this company on their simply paying their honest debts, we will be as bad as the young man in London who succeeded to his father's chancery practice, and when the father asked the son about the famous case of Smith vs. Jones, the son said, 'I settled that yesterday amicably and fairly to both parties.'' Oh! you young blockhead,' said he, 'I have lived on that suit for the last twenty years.

His command of general literature is equally complete. In one of the lively verbal duels with

which he disturbed the dullness of the Senate, he remarked to Mr. Eaton, of Connecticut:

"I have read a great deal from the Senator this morning, and I will read more before I get through."

MR. EATON. Perhaps that will be the best part of your speech, except what you read from Webster.

MR. BLAINE. I am obliged to the Senator for the exception. It is equal to Dogberry's injunction, "Put God first."

The same debate (in May, 1879) was marked by his great oratorical conflict with the late Senator Hill, of Georgia, which with the substitution of more rapid modern methods for the stately formality of old times, may be compared to the test of strength between Webster and Hayne. Passing over for a moment the more serious passages, it will be remembered that Senator Hill had written to the voters of Troup county when elected to the Secession Convention, "I will consent to the dissolution of the Union as I would consent to the death of my father, never from choice, only from necessity, and then in sorrow and sadness of heart."

Mr. Blaine read the ordinance of secession adopted by the Convention, and then continued, amidst the uncontrollable laughter of even those who were hit hardest:

"That was the ordinance which the Senator from

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Georgia said to the people of Troup he would consent to as he would to the death of his father. and the ordinance which the evening after it was passed so filled his heart with sadness that he put out the lights in his room and would not make a speech to a crowd outside serenading him. I have read the yeas and nays on that, and what is my unbounded surprise to find that the Senator from Georgia himself voted for the ordinance. Here he is, Hill, of Troup.' On the call of the yeas and nays there were 208 in favor of the ordinance of secession and 89 against it, and in the 89 were Alexander H. Stephens and Herschel V. Johnson, who had that very year run for Vice-President on the Douglass ticket. The Senator from Georgia [Mr. Hill], who would consent to it just as he would the death of his father, made up his mind that if two hundred and eight men wanted to murder the old man he would join with them. [Great laughter and applause.] Rather than be in a minority he would join the murderous crowd [laughter], and be a parricide."

Immediately afterward occurred a tart personal passage, which further proved Mr. Blaine's perfect coolness and readiness, and is also important as being his own account of an event which is sometimes unfairly used to his discredit, although any public man had a perfect right, at the time referred to, to decide for himself, and upon the advice of trusted friends (as did General Garfield), whether