has ever done, win three times in succession the majority of the votes of the people of this Republic, was just the streak of rich, red-blooded humanity in the politician and statesman which showed on the one side in the iron will and strong anger of the hard fighter, and on the other in the honest humility and simple kindness of the man.

But to one who listened much to his talk during the last ten years of his life

his justice seemed as strongly marked as his kindness. From the day when he went out from his mother's house with twentyfive dollars in his pocket to make his way in the world, his life had been one of manly independence. In his last years this was a part of himself and showed in many little ways. When he was nearly seventy and just out of a sick-room he rejected with some indignation the offer of a younger comrade to carry his gun-case out of the

railroad-car. "No, go away. You've got your own to carry. It isn't fair for you to take mine too." A young man who in the middle of Cleveland's life used to be taken fishing with him told me this story. They were trolling for blue-fish and the boy hooked his first fish. A little astonished by the strong tug at his hands, he called for help. Cleveland took hold, but after a haul or two let go, saying: "No, every fellow in this boat must pull in his own fish."

This independent self-reliance freed his talk and his feeling from all maudlin pity for those misfortunes which men owe entirely to themselves, nor was he prone to offer to his fellow men, even in thought, the kind of help he would have scorned for himself. His talk after he had retired from public life constantly suggested that this trait of his character had supplied, perhaps unconsciously, one of the strong impulses for much of his political action and judgment. For example, it was easy to see that it was one of the deepest roots of his dislike for a high-protectionist policy. Frequently, in talking about it, he showed his belief that it coddled those whom it benefited, trained them away from courageous self-reliance, and taught them to look to the government for helpa help which he believed was often given unjustly at the expense of other people and especially at the expense of our farmers.

The misdeeds of a man who ground the faces of the poor never failed to stir him to outspoken anger. But he hated the sentimentality that condones cheating when the wrong-doer happens to be poor and the victim rich. I remember his pleasure when I recalled to him this passage from the Bible: "Ye shall do no unrighteousness in judgment: thou shalt not respect the person of the poor, nor honor the presence of the mighty, but in righteousness shalt thou judge thy neighbor."

No ruler of a great nation was ever more deserving of the nickname "the Father of His People," but it was easy to see from his talk on many different subjects why, when governor of New York, he had signed his celebrated veto of the bill to reduce the fare on the Manhattan Elevated Railroad because it was

against law and good faith-in spite of the fact that it would have been an advantage to that plain people whom he so truly loved.

Grover Cleveland, like many men of very simple and very deep convictions, had strong prejudices. But there was one way to break through his toughest prejudices in a moment-that was to show him that the subject under discussion was a matter of personal justice to some one. I remember his telling me about an Indian condemned to death in the Far West, who appealed to the Great White Father, saying that his doom had come from perjury and hatred. "They wanted me," he said, "to let some one else look through the papers, but I felt that the poor friendless Indian had turned to me for justice, and I must myself decide what was true and right."

Another marked trait of Grover Cleveland's later years was his strong faith in the good side of human nature. He was a democrat to the marrow of his bones, and he believed in the rule of the people through their chosen representatives. This faith in the people rested on his feeling that, underneath any folly and excitement of the average man, there is common sense and patience and a belief that right ought to be done. In those years when the party he loved and had led to victory was continuously led, by methods he disapproved, to repeated defeats, gloomy thoughts not infrequently ruled his talk for a time, but his indestructible faith in the common sense of the American people always in the end broke through the clouds. For, after all, he felt sure the stronger side of men was their better side, and his belief in the sense and honesty of the people made him trust the destinies of the Republic. Speaking of a certain noted politician of the sort to whom a party is only a machine for winning elections by craft, he said to me once: "The trouble with that sort of fellow is that he is always ready to make the mistake of thinking there is no political force in a moral idea."

The strong man, with a judgment which worked slowly but inevitably like some great machine and a will that overcame his feelings as the tide the waves, had in him traits of gentleness which showed

plainly in his later years as they had showed in his life to those who got close enough to know him well. He was a faithful friend, sharing both joys and sorrows. Even in regard to the minor goods of life he was not disposed to keep things to himself. When Joseph Jefferson sent pompano from Florida or Ernest Gittings redheads from Baltimore, a brace of fish or a pair of ducks found their way up the doorsteps of neighbors able to appreciate those delicacies. He was very hospitable and loved to see a little circle of friends around his fire smoking some of the good cigars sent him for Christmas. If the mood was light, he often enlivened it more by some story that smacked of the soil. But though he liked stories with a sharp tang to them like roasting-apples or fresh-baked gingerbread, he had no predilection for ill-odored anecdotes. His own humor and the humor he liked most in others was dry and not infrequently took the characteristic American form of solemn exaggeration. For instance, I heard him tell with much appreciation how returning to the White House from a shooting-trip he sent the only swan he had shot to his secretary Mr. Thurber. Some days passed and he heard nothing about the swan. So finally he asked some one in the office: "Has Thurber said anything to you about that swan I sent him?" "No, not a word." "Well, I'm going to ask him whether it was good." Not long after, Mr. Thurber came in, and the President said: "By the way,

This was before the present law protecting swan was passed. Mr. Cleveland was very scrupulous about keeping the game-laws.

Thurber, how was that swan I sent you? Did you find it good?" "Yes, it was a good swan all right. But I don't think we quite knew exactly how to cook it." The profound silence which followed was broken by the question: "How did you cook it?" "Well, you see, we boiled it only twelve hours and I think it would have been just a little bit better if we had boiled it twenty-four."

If the talk was serious around the fire, again and again he would, after listening in silence, hit the nail straight on the head with some concise, hammerlike phrase of shrewd judgment. Toward the end of his life a curious, almost childlike, and altogether lovable shyness made him shrink from going to other houses than his own. But when he was persuaded, as he usually was, to accept the invitation of a friend, he always enjoyed himself hugely and was reluctant to say goodnight.

He was devotedly attached to his home and family, and when death crossed his threshold the grief of the strong man was pitiable to see.

He cared little for classic music or art, but he loved the song of birds and was extremely fond of flowers. He had a tenderness toward all children and he more than once said to me: "The hardest of all the things in life that are hard to accept seems to me that little children should suffer." For the inmost heart of the rugged man, the stalwart fighter for the right as he saw it, was gentle, and sensitive to the beauty and tenderness of life.

VOL. LXXXI.-26

I

IN the fall the war was always there, but we did not go to it any more. It was cold in the fall in Milan and the dark came very early. Then the electric lights came on, and it was pleasant along the streets looking in the windows. There was much game hanging outside the shops, and the snow powdered in the fur of the foxes and the wind blew their tails. The deer hung stiff and heavy and empty, and small birds blew in the wind and the wind turned their feathers. It was a cold fall and the wind came down from the mountains.

We were all at the hospital every afternoon, and there were different ways of walking across the town through the dusk to the hospital. Two of the ways were alongside canals, but they were long. Always, though, you crossed a bridge across a canal to enter the hospital. There was a choice of three bridges. On one of them a woman sold roasted chestnuts. It was warm standing in front of her charcoal fire, and the chestnuts were warm afterward in your pocket. The hospital was very old and very beautiful, and you entered through a gate and walked across a courtyard and out a gate on the other side. There were usually funerals starting from the courtyard. Beyond the old hospital were the new brick pavilions, and there we met every afternoon and were all very polite and interested in what was the matter, and sat in the machines that were to make so much difference.

The doctor came up to the machine where I was sitting and said: “What did you like best to do before the war? Did you practise a sport?"

I said: "Yes, football."

'Good," he said. "You will be able to play football again better than ever."

My knee did not bend and the leg dropped straight from the knee to the ankle without a calf, and the machine was to bend the knee and make it move as in riding a tricycle. But it did not bend yet, and instead the machine lurched when it came to the bending part. The doctor said: "That will all pass. You are a fortunate young man. You will play football again like a champion."

In the next machine was a major who had a little hand like a baby's. He winked at me when the doctor examined his hand, which was between two leather straps that bounced up and down and flapped the stiff fingers, and said: "And will I too play football, captain-doctor?" He had been a very great fencer, and before the war the greatest fencer in Italy.

The doctor went to his office in a back room and brought back a photograph which showed a hand that had been withered almost as small as the major's before it had taken a machine course, and after was a little larger. The major held the photograph with his good hand and looked at it very carefully. "A wound?" he asked.

"An industrial accident," the doctor said.

"Very interesting, very interesting," the major said, and handed it back to the doctor.

"You have confidence?" "No," said the major.

There were three boys who came each day who were about the same age I was. They were all three from Milan, and one of them was to be a lawyer, and one was to be a painter, and one had intended to be a soldier, and after we were finished with the machines sometimes we walked back together to the Café Cova, which was