many are doing business, not for their own aggrandizement, but to benefit their fellow men! A gentleman of extensive business told the writer of this but recently that he did not expect to make any more money. What he made hereafter was for others.

The same is true also in professional life. In the ministry, in law, in medicine, are to be found men, not a few, whose aim is not wealth or fame, but who desire to serve "their generation according to the will of God." It were easy to make a catalogue of men and women in all ages who represent to the world this type of character. They are the choicest treasures of our world, more precious than mines of gold and of silver. To enumerate even a few of them would be impossible here.

The one noble character which rises above all others is the world's Redeemer, the Lord Jesus Christ. He is the highest specimen of true nobility the world has ever known. Every trait illustrating it was found in him and the attainment of it will be best secured by the study of his life and teachings and the imitation of his example.

True nobility is possible to all and everywhere. It matters little whether one be in public position or in private station, in a royal palace or in a humble cottage, in professional life or in daily manual labor. There is no place where it will not have opportunity for exercise. Wherever generosity, purity, self-sacrifice, truth, and fidelity are found, there will be found that for which all the people of the world should seek, true nobility.

"Be noble! and the nobleness that lies

In other men, sleeping, but never dead,
Will rise in majesty to meet thine own."- Lowell.

"Be noble in every thought and in every deed."— Longfellow.

CHAPTER XXIII.

THOMAS BRACKETT REED.

ON THE RIGHT USE OF WEALTH-A

HIS CHARACTERISTICS

CONVERSATION GLIMPSES OF STRENGTH OF HIS PERSONAL CONVICTIONS - HIS HOME HOW IT BESPEAKS THE MAN FAVORITE CLUB EARLY ENVIRONMENT AND ANCESTRY-THE SCHOOLMASTER AT COLLEGE -HABITS JOURNEYS TO CALIFORNIA -ADMISSION TO THE BAR-HIS RETURN EAST -ENTERS PUBLIC LIFE-MEMBER OF CONGRESS-A MEMORABLE SPEECH-SPEAKER READINESS IN DEBATE LITERARY SIDE OF CAREER -HIS EPIGRAMS. "MAKE, SAVE, GIVE ALL YOU CAN."

OF READING

HIS

We envious people who cannot be wealthy any more than we can add a cubit to our stature avenge ourselves by thinking and proclaiming that pursuit of wealth is sordid and stifles the nobler sentiments of the soul. Whether this be so or not, if whoever makes to grow two blades of grass where but one grew before is a benefactor of his race, he also is a benefactor who makes two ships sail the sea where but one encountered its storms before. However sordid the owner may be, this is a benefit of which he cannot deprive the world.

But no progress which did not lift all ever lifted any. If we let the poison of filth and disease percolate through the hovels of the poor, death knocks at the palace gates. If we leave to the greater horror of ignorance any portion of our race, the consequences of ignorance strike us all and there is no escape. We must all move, but we must all keep together. It is only when the rear guard comes up that the vanguard can go on.

J.B. Reed

66

TT was at a dinner in Washington," said Robert P. Porter, "that I had the good fortune to find myself seated next to Thomas B. Reed. It was a brilliant occasion, for around the table sat well-known statesmen, scientists, jurists, economists, and literary men, besides two or three who had gained eminence in the medical profession. Mr. Reed was at his best, 'better than the best champagne.' His conversation, sparkling with good nature, was not only exhilarating to his immediate neighbors, but at times to the entire table. Being among friends, among the sort of men he really liked, he let himself out, as it were.

"Before the conversation had gone beyond the serious point I remember asking the ex-Speaker how he felt at the time when the entire Democratic press of the country had pounced upon him; when he was being held up as 'The Czar a man whose iron heels were crushing out American popular government. 'Oh,' he promptly replied, 'you mean what were my feelings while the uproar about the rules of the Fifty-first Congress was going on, and while the question was in doubt? Well, I had no feeling except that of entire serenity, and the reason was simple. I knew just what I was going to do if the House did not sustain me;' and raising his eyes, with a typical twist of his mouth, which those who have seen it don't easily forget, he added, 'when a man has decided upon a plan of action for either contingency there is no need for him to be disturbed, you know.'

"And may I ask what you determined to do if the House decided adversely?'

"I should simply have left the chair, resigning the Speakership, and left the House, resigning my seat in Congress. There were things that could be done, you know, outside of political life, and for my own part I had made up my mind that if political life consisted in sitting helplessly in the Speaker's chair, and seeing the majority powerless to pass legislation, I had had enough of it, and was ready to step down and out."

"After a moment's pause he turned, and, looking me full in the face with a half smile, continued: 'Did it ever occur to you that it is a very soothing thing to know exactly what you are going to do, if things do not go your way? You have then made yourself equal to the worst, and have only to wait

and find out what was ordained before the foundation of the world.'

666

'You never had a doubt in your own mind that the position taken was in perfect accordance with justice and common sense?' I ventured.

"Never for a moment. Men, you see, being creatures of use and wont, are naturally bound up in old traditions. While every court which had ever considered the question had decided one way, we had been used to the other. Fortunately for the country, there was no wavering in our ranks.'

"But how did you feel,' said I, 'when the uproar was at its worst, when the members of the minority were raging on the floor together?'

666

"Just as you would feel,' was the reply, 'if a big creature were jumping at you, and you knew the exact length and strength of his chain, and were quite sure of the weapon you had in your hands.""

This conversation gives a clear insight into the character of Thomas B. Reed. It shows his chief characteristics: manly aggressiveness, an iron will qualities which friend and foe alike have recognized in him- with a certain serenity of temper, a broadness, a bigness of horizon which only the men who have been brought into personal contact with him fully appreciate.

Standing, as he does, in the foremost rank of both public and professional men, still one of the leaders of his party, he must continue to be one of the most attractive personages in American life. First of all, one thing about the man has to be emphasized; he lacks one of the traits that popular leaders too often possess. He cannot be all things to all men. He is bound to be true to his personal convictions, and he is not the man to advocate measures or policies he detests. Every one knows how public men have at times voted against their earnest convictions, and then gone into the cloak room and apologized for it; but it would be difficult to imagine a man of Mr. Reed's composition in this rôle.

To judge a man well, to know his best side, it is necessary to see him at home.

Mr. Reed's home in Portland is a three-story corner brick house, on one of the most sightly spots in town. Over the western walls of that modern, substantial New England

home there clambers a mass of Japanese ivy, which, relieving the straightness of the architectural lines, gives a pleasing something, an artistic touch, to the ensemble. From the roof of the house there is a superb view of Casco Bay and the picturesque expanse of country around Portland.

The stamp of the man's character is plain every where in that house. The rooms are large, airy, and unpretentiously furnished, yet with solidity and that certain winning grace of domestic appointments in old New England. Much of Mr. Reed's work is done at his desk in a wee bit of a room on the second floor, where crowded bookshelves reach to the ceiling. His library long ago overflowed the confines of his den, and books are scattered through the rooms on every floor; books, bought not for bindings nor editions, but for the contents, ranging from miscellaneous novels to the dryest historical treatises, from poetry to philosophy.

The library, on the ground floor, where callers are usually received, has among the inevitable bookshelves a few photographs of masterpieces. Over the mantelpiece a painting of Weeks's shows that the sympathies of the owner extend beyond that sphere to which the reading public is inclined to confine him.

Of the favorite haunts of Mr. Reed, the place of all to study his social side is at his club, The Cumberland.

"You see," said Mr. Reed, once in conversation, "a club of this kind is only possible in a conservative town like Portland, a staid, old place which grows slowly, at the rate of about five or six hundred a year, where the one hundred club members, while belonging to opposite political parties, unite to a man in celebrating the victory of any of their fellow members. Most of them, friends from boyhood, have gone to school together, and are known to one another but by their Christian names." There the ex-Czar is always called "Tom," or "Thomas, old boy," and there reigns supreme a fine spirit of equality, or unpretentious "give and take" sort of intercourse, which is really the ideal object of a club.

"Indeed, there is no place like it," said Mr. Reed. "It is the most homelike club one can imagine; too small to have coteries, and with lots of bright, sensible boys, quick at repartee. People talk of my wit, but, I tell you, it's hard work to hold my own there; and then, no one can try to pose