Now, I think that Mr. Cleveland has made a very great mistake. First, I think he was mistaken as to the facts in the Sandwich Islands; second, as to the Constitution of the United States, and thirdly, as to the powers of the President of the United States.
Question. In your experience as a lawyer what was the most unique case in which you were ever engaged?
Answer. The Star Route trial. Every paper in the country, but one, was against the defence, and that one was a little sheet owned by one of the defendants. I received a note from a man living in a little town in Ohio criticizing me for defending the accused. In reply I wrote that I supposed he was a sensible man and that he, of course, knew what he was talking about when he said the accused were guilty; that the Government needed just such men as he, and that he should come to the trial at once and testify. The man wrote back: "Dear Colonel: I am a —— fool."
Question. Will the church and the stage ever work together for the betterment of the world, and what is the province of each?
Answer. The church and stage will never work together. The pulpit pretends that fiction is fact. The stage pretends that fiction is fact. The pulpit pretence is dishonest—that of the stage is sincere. The actor is true to art, and honestly pretends to be what he is not. The actor is natural, if he is great, and in this naturalness is his truth and his sincerity. The pulpit is unnatural, and for that reason untrue. The pulpit is for another world, the stage for this. The stage is good because it is natural, because it portrays real and actual life; because "it holds the mirror up to nature." The pulpit is weak because it too often belittles and demeans this life; because it slanders and calumniates the natural and is the enemy of joy.
—The Inter-Ocean, Chicago, February 2, 1894.
ORATORS AND ORATORY.*
[* It was at his own law office in New York City that I had
my talk with that very notable American, Col. Robert G.
Ingersoll. "Bob" Ingersoll, Americans call him
affectionately; in a company of friends it is "The Colonel."
A more interesting personality it would be hard to find, and
those who know even a little of him will tell you that a
bigger-hearted man probably does not live. Suppose a well-
knit frame, grown stouter than it once was, and a fine,
strong face, with a vivid gleam in the eyes, a deep,
uncommonly musical voice, clear cut, decisive, and a manner
entirely delightful, yet tinged with a certain reserve.
Introduce a smoking cigar, the smoke rising in little curls
and billows, then imagine a rugged sort of picturesqueness
in dress, and you get, not by any means the man, but, still,
some notion of "Bob" Ingersoll.
Colonel Ingersoll stands at the front of American orators.
The natural thing, therefore, was that I should ask him—a
master in the art—about oratory. What he said I shall give
in his own words precisely as I took them down from his
lips, for in the case of such a good commander of the old
English tongue that is of some importance. But the
wonderful limpidness, the charming pellucidness of Ingersoll
can only be adequately understood when you also have the
finishing touch of his facile voice.]