Many guests sat at Marshall's board upon these occasions. Among them were his own sons as well as those of some of his guests. These dinners were repetitions within doors of the Quoit Club entertainments, except that the food was more abundant and varied, and the cheering drinks were of better quality—for Marshall prided himself on this feature of hospitality, especially on his madeira, of which he was said to keep the best to be had in America. Wit and repartee, joke, story and song, speech and raillery, brought forth volleys of laughter and roars of applause until far into the morning hours.[216] Marshall was not only at the head of the table as host, but was the leader of the merriment.[217]
His labors as Chief Justice did not dull his delight in the reading of poetry and fiction, which was so keen in his earlier years.[218] At the summit of his career, when seventy-one years old, he read all of Jane Austen's works, and playfully reproved Story for failing to name her in a list of authors given in his Phi Beta Kappa oration at Harvard. "I was a little mortified," he wrote Story, "to find that you had not admitted the name of Miss Austen into your list of favorites. I had just finished reading her novels when I received your discourse, and was so much pleased with them that I looked in it for her name, and was rather disappointed at not finding it. Her flights are not lofty, she does not soar on eagle's wings, but she is pleasing, interesting, equable, and yet amusing. I count on your making some apology for this omission."[219]
Story himself wrote poetry, and Marshall often asked for copies of his verses.[220] "The plan of life I had formed for myself to be adopted after my retirement from office," he tells Story, "is to read nothing but novels and poetry."[221] That this statement genuinely expressed his tastes is supported by the fact that, among the few books which the Chief Justice treasured, were the novels of Sir Walter Scott and an extensive edition of the British poets.[222] While his chief intellectual pleasure was the reading of fiction, Marshall liked poetry even better; and he committed to memory favorite passages which he quoted as comment on passing incidents. Once when he was told that certain men had changed their opinions as a matter of political expediency, he repeated Homer's lines:
"Ye gods, what havoc does ambition make
'Mong all your works."[223]
During the six or eight weeks that the Supreme Court sat each year, Marshall was the same in manner and appearance in Washington as he was among his neighbors in Richmond—the same in dress, in habits, in every way. Once a practitioner sent his little son to Marshall's quarters for some legal papers. The boy was in awe of the great man. But the Chief Justice, detecting the feelings of the lad, remarked: "Billy, I believe I can beat you playing marbles; come into the yard and we will have a game." Soon the Chief Justice of the United States and the urchin were hard at play.[224]
If he reached the court-room before the hour of convening court, he sat among the lawyers and talked and joked as if he were one of them;[225] and, judging from his homely, neglected clothing, an uninformed onlooker would have taken him for the least important of the company. Yet there was about him an unconscious dignity that prevented any from presuming upon his good nature, for Marshall inspired respect as well as affection. After their surprise and disappointment at his ill attire and want of impressiveness,[226] attorneys coming in contact with him were unfailingly captivated by his simplicity and charm.
It was thus that Joseph Story, when a very young lawyer, first fell under Marshall's spell. "I love his laugh," he wrote; "it is too hearty for an intriguer,—and his good temper and unwearied patience are equally agreeable on the bench and in the study."[227] And Marshall wore well. The longer and more intimately men associated with him, the greater their fondness for him. "I am in love with his character, positively in love," wrote Story after twenty-four years of close and familiar contact.[228] He "rises ... with the nearest survey," again testified Story in a magazine article.[229]
When, however, the time came for him to open court, a transformation came over him. Clad in the robes of his great office, with the Associate Justices on either side of him, no king on a throne ever appeared more majestic than did John Marshall. The kindly look was still in his eye, the mildness still in his tones, the benignity in his features. But a gravity of bearing, a firmness of manner, a concentration and intentness of mind, seemed literally to take possession of the man, although he was, and appeared to be, as unconscious of the change as he was that there was anything unusual in his conduct when off the bench.[230]
Marshall said and did things that interested other people and caused them to talk about him. He was noted for his quick wit, and the bar was fond of repeating anecdotes about him. "Did you hear what the Chief Justice said the other day?"—and then the story would be told of a bright saying, a quick repartee, a picturesque incident. Chief Justice Gibson of Pennsylvania, when a young man, went to Marshall for advice as to whether he should accept a position offered him on the State Bench. The young attorney, thinking to flatter him, remarked that the Chief Justice had "reached the acme of judicial distinction." "Let me tell you what that means, young man," broke in Marshall. "The acme of judicial distinction means the ability to look a lawyer straight in the eyes for two hours and not hear a damned word he says."[231]
Wherever he happened to be, nothing pleased Marshall so much as to join a convivial party at dinner or to attend any sort of informal social gathering. On one occasion he went to the meeting of a club at Philadelphia, held in a room at a tavern across the hall from the bar. It was a rule of the club that every one present should make a rhyme upon a word suddenly given. As he entered, the Chief Justice observed two or three Kentucky colonels taking their accustomed drink. When Marshall appeared in the adjoining room, where the company was gathered, he was asked for an extemporaneous rhyme on the word "paradox." Looking across the hall, he quickly answered: