Page:The Granite Monthly Volume 1.djvu/291

 HARVEY'S " WEBSTER.

��283

��cences deserves notice. He generally bore in dignified silence the assaults of his enemies, and never returned their in- sults in kind. In the six volumes of his public speeches not one paragraph can be found that would needlessly wound the feelings of any living man. He charged Mr. Everett, in editing his works, to suppress or soften anything that would give pain to his opponents. There was only one speech where the illustrious editor was called upon to soft- en the severity of the orator. In his de- fence of the Treaty of Washington Mr. Webster replied personally to the gratui- tous slanders of Charles Jared Ingersol. His blows were crushing, and in prepar- ing this speech for the press Mr. Everett confessed that "it was hard to make a trip-hammer strike softly."

Speaking of the treatment he had re- ceived from politicians, he said to Mr. Harvey : " The man who serves the pub- lic most faithfully receives no adequate reward. In my own history, those acts which have been, before God, the most disinterested and the least stained by selfish considerations have been precise- ly those for which I have been most free- ly abused ! " On one of those occasions when the city council of Boston closed the old " Cradle of Liberty " to the man who, by his tariff speeches, had created the manufactures and doubled the com- merce of the Old Bay State, he received a subsequent offer of the hall, by the Mayor and Aldermen of the city, with studied contempt. He wrote a letter in reply to their invitation, couched in the coldest language he could command. He sent the letter to his friend Choate for revision. Choate exclaimed: "J amend a letter of Mr. Webster ! I should as soon think of amending the Acts of the Apostles ! The letter is perfect. No- body else could write such a letter."

Mr. Harvey has done a good work in setting forth, by examples, Mr. Web- ster's domestic and social virtues. He was a most loving and affectionate hus- band and father, a kind, genial, thought- ful companion, and a generous and hos- pitable neighbor. Mr. Harvey denies the charges of self-indulgence which the press and pulpit so liberally published

��during the last years of his life. He re- cites conversations held with Mr. Web- ster at various times concerning his re- ligious views. Mr. Webster, near the close of his life, declared his attachment to the orthodox Congregational Church, which he joined in Salisbury, at the age of twenty, and of which he was a mem- ber when he died. One of the most touching narratives of the whole book was his interview with John Colby, his brother-in-law, who became a religious man at the age of eighty-five. Mr. Web- ster had not met his brother-in- law for forty years. They warmly embraced each other and wept for joy. In Mr. Harvey's presence, at Mr. Colby's re- quest, Mr. Webster knelt and prayed for the household and their guests, and Mr. Colby followed with a fervent petition for each individual in the house. The scene was peculiarly affecting.

Mr. Harvey has done a good work in vindicating his friend from unmerited as- persion, and in aiding the advancing gen- erations to appreciate the greatest states- man and orator our country has pro- duced. The following extracts are from Mr. Justice Neilson's Review of the Reminiscences in the Albany Law Jour- nal:

" We now come to speak of two mat- ters wherein Mr. Harvey gives us new light as to Webster's character. If any idea of Webster has been unanimously accepted, it is that he was always care- less about his debts, and very much ad- dicted to indulgence in intoxicating drinks. On these two points his biogra- pher surprises us. In regard to the first he convinces us that Mr. Webster has been misunderstood. It must be remem- bered that, for the sake of the public, Webster consented to comparative pov- erty. Being a poor man, he gave up a law practice which would have produced him $25,000 annually, for a senator's or secretary's meagre salary, and incurred the heavy autlay inseparable from such positions. It has been popularly believed that State street came to his relief on several occasions of necessity, but Mr. Harvey shows that on one occasion at least he indignantly spurned the proffer of such assistance. In his last years, and while in feeble health, he consented to argue the Goodyear case for a fee of $15,- 000, solely for the sake of paying some debts, and in his last days he wished he could get two more such fees, so that he could die out of debt. On the other

�� �