John Randolph had had a discussion with a man named Sheffey, who was one of his colleagues, and who had been a shoemaker in early life. Sheffey had made a speech which excited Randolph’s jealousy, and Randolph, in replying to him, said that Sheffey was out of his sphere, and by way of illustration had told the story of the sculptor Phidias. “This sculptor,” said Randolph, “had made a noted figure, and having placed it on the sidewalk, he secured a hiding-place near by, where, unobserved, he might hear the criticisms of those who passed upon his statue. Among those who examined the marble was a shoemaker, and this man criticised the sandals and muttered over to himself as to where they were wrong. After he had gone away, Phidias came forth and examined the points that the shoemaker had objected to, and found that his criticism was correct. He removed the statue to his studio and remedied the defects. The next day Phidias again placed it upon the street and the shoemaker again stopped before it. He saw at once that the defects he had noticed had been remedied, and he now began to criticise very foolishly other points about the statue. Phidias listened to him for a time, and then came forth with a Latin phrase which means ‘Let the shoemaker stick to his last.’ And so,” concluded Randolph, “I say in regard to my colleague.”
Chestnut
The slang term “chestnut,” as applied to ancient jokes or moss-grown anecdotes, though credited to a Philadelphia actor, may be traced to a remote period. Ovid, in his “Art of Love,” says, “Let your boy take to your mistress grapes, or what Amaryllis so delighted in; but at the present time she is fond of chestnuts no longer.” This is plainly a reference to a line in the Second Eclogue, in which Virgil tells how chestnuts pleased Amaryllis. The idea obviously was that for weariness and satiety the chestnut had lost its allurement.
Milton’s Indebtedness
A reverend gentleman named Edmunson is endeavoring to rob the author of “Paradise Lost” of all the honor which belongs to originality of conception. He has published a work to prove that Milton was largely indebted in the composition of his great poem to various poems of a Dutch rhymester of the same period, one Joost Van den Vondel, and that Samson Agonistes was inspired by a drama by Vondel on the same subject.
An Expressive Phrase
Mr. Lincoln has often been credited with the expressive phrase, “Of the people, by the people, for the people.” It was not original with him, however; Theodore Parker first used it, and often used it during the last decade of his life. A lady who was long a member of Mr. Parker’s household, and who assisted him in his intellectual work, says that the idea did not spring at once to his mind in its perfect conciseness; he had expressed it again and again with gradually lessening diffuseness before he gave the address to the Anti-Slavery Society, May 13, 1854, where it appears thus: “Of all the people, by all the people, and for all the people,” as published in Additional Speeches, Vol. II., page 25. “But that,” she adds, “was not quite pointed enough for the weapon he needed to use so often in criticising the national action, to pierce and penetrate the mind of hearer and reader with the just idea of democracy, securing it there by much iteration; and I can distinctly recall his joyful look when he afterwards read it to me in his library, condensed into this gem: ‘Of the people, by the people, for the people.’”
Overstrained Politeness
Maunsell B. Field, in his “Memories,” relates that General Winfield Scott told him that during the last war with Great Britain (1812–14), before an action began between the two armies, it was customary for the respective commanders to ride forward, accompanied by their staffs, and formally salute each other. Each then returned to his own lines, and the battle opened.
This serves as a reminder of the old story of Fournier (L’Esprit dans l’histoire): “Lord Hay at the battle of Fontenoy, 1745, called out, ‘Gentlemen of the French Guard, fire first.’ To which the Comte d’Auteroches replied, ‘Sir, we never fire first; please to fire yourselves.’”