Page:The autobiography of a Pennsylvanian.djvu/256

 slightly stooping, large head and a ready tongue, he is the only man I have ever met in my life who talks all of the time and who always talks well. Every sentence has something in it, keen and incisive as well as philosophical. At the bar he was rapidly closing up the gap, between John G. Johnson and himself for the leadership. He had a large practice, and by it had made a fortune. Why he was willing to leave it behind him and start upon another career has ever been something of a mystery. A learned and most able judge, his success has been somewhat qualified by the fact that he could never quite forget that he was no longer an advocate. A thoroughly good-hearted man, with much of the milk of human kindness overflowing in his soul, there was, nevertheless, a remnant in him of that Eastern tyranny which is shown on the Assyrian monuments, where the successful heroes are seen gouging out the eyes of their foes. Saving for these limitations upon his practical usefulness, no greater or more capable judge ever sat on the bench.

One day a young lawyer began to argue upon that most intricate and technical of subjects—the law of contingent remainders. He began in the middle, worked both ways with unwearied zeal, and kept it up for half an hour and perhaps longer. I sat there and blandly listened. After a while, Sulzberger arose from his seat and paced to and fro behind me with his hands hidden in the folds of his gown. Presently, unable to control himself longer, he came leaning over me and whispered: “You damned hypocrite!”

In 1894 my daughter Josephine and I made a trip to Cuba on the fruit steamer Braganza, built on the pattern of the Alabama, and on the way saw the island of San Salvador, or Cat Island, which was the first land found in America by Columbus. It did not look as though he had found very much of importance. We landed at Barraçoa, a very old town on the eastern end of the island. A low wall ran around it once, intended for defense, but now broken down, and on top of the wall paced one solitary and forlorn-looking 242