Page:Life of John Boyle O'Reilly.djvu/269

Rh physician, novelist, essayist, and professor; but, best of all, the kind, the warm heart. . . . Much as I love Boston, I am glad I was not born in it; for then I could not brag of it to strangers; at least not with good taste; being foreign born I can—and I do Boston deserves good things, but Wendell Phillips is too good for Boston just yet. The city will grow to him in time. But to this day he is like an orange given to a baby—Boston can only taste the rind of him. . . . From his first speech in Faneuil Hall, forty-six years ago, to this day, Wendell Phillips has never struck a note discordant with the rights and interests of the people. And, mind you, he was born and bred a class man, an aristocrat. He had the position, the personal attributes, that bind men to the higher life and delightful intercourse of the reserved and select. All distinction was his. . . . But if one begins to quote from Wendell Phillips's speeches it becomes a kind of intoxication and must be abandoned." I find the same danger in attempting to quote from this masterly tribute of one great man to another. It touched the great-hearted Abolitionist, who replied:

June 18, 1883.

What shall I say for all these pleasant things your kindness has made you write about me?

If I were younger, I would fall back on what Windham said to old Sam Johnson's praise, "to be remembered not as having deserved it, but that I may."

Three score and ten, though, cannot indulge in much hope of improvement, even with such gracious stimulus.

The thing I can frankly say is, how glad I am that you thought of bringing in the old letter of 1883; I very much like to have my word go on record with the rest of you against Gladstone and Bright.

But this is so far from being the first time you have brought me into your debt that I may as well stop trying to pay.

Yours cordially,

"The old letter of 1882," to which he refers, was one written by him to express his horror at the murder of