Page:The Green Bag (1889–1914), Volume 20.pdf/384

 JUDGE GEORGE GRAY requiring extraordinary effort and acumen he has always had a reserve force fully equal to the occasion. Judge Gray has occasionally disclosed to us certain of his own ideals, the repetition of which is like casting sidelights on his own c haracter. In his eulogy of a deceased senator, he referred to him as the embodiment of all that was meant by " a gentleman in the best acceptation of that word," and he quoted the first .five verses of the Fifteenth Psalm, as "the best description of a gentleman that I know . . . given by inspiration." On another occasion as far back as 1879. in his remarks at a Bar meeting, he said concerning a deceased judge, "he more nearly filled my ideal of a perfect judge than any I have ever known" who "pos sessed to a degree that I have never seen and hardly hope to see equaled, those qualities of patient listening, that attention which helps the counsel who is arguing a

283

cause and endeavoring to put before him the result of his study. All of us here have experienced his manner, his attitude of awakened attention and careful noting of what you consider the strong points of your case, that very comforting assurance to counsel who is engaged in presenting a case to the court that the points he is making are not being overlooked and will receive the attention and consideration which they deserve; and then that very remarkable quality -that, when the judgment was delivered, the acquiescence in the result seemed to be compelled from both sides by its clearness and impartiality and the evident ability which he had devoted to it." Such then in brief is the character and such has been the legal life of this lawyer, . senator, diplomatist, arbitrator, and judge, for whom those who know him consider no honor too great, although he is too modest and retiring to seek any for himself. PHILADELPHIA, PA., May, 1908.