Samuel Bowles, and Murat Halstead. That the country was not ready for this attempted reconciliation was no fault of Mr. Watterson, who for six years had been leading up to it with unfaltering purpose.

Mr. Watterson had now fairly entered upon his public career in politics as well as in journalism. Be it understood that the term politics is never used in relation to him in the sense of office seeking or office holding. He has been in politics only to direct a policy. He has never sought office and never held but one. In obedience to the demands of the hour, and in compliance with the personal behests of Mr. Tilden, he consented to an election to the Forty-fourth Congress, in 1876, filling out the unexpired term of Edward Y. Parsons. After making his mark in the House he declined a re-election. He had been a member of the Committee on Ways and Means, and his speeches on the Electoral Commission had been the most noteworthy utterances on that subject. This Tilden period was the most picturesque in Mr. Watterson's public career. At the urgent demand of Mr. Tilden's friends, he had presided over the convention that nominated him for the presidency. He went to Congress because Mr. Tilden conceived it necessary that there should be in the House a personal representative who could speak.

To write Mr. Watterson's biography during the last twentyfive years from the political side, would be to write the history of Democracy during that period. His influence, however, has been exerted not as an office holder, but as one independent of, and undesirous of, office. He has stood for what he considered pure Democracy against the fallacies that from time to time have foisted themselves upon the party,- national fellowship and unity as against sectional prejudice and radicalism, honest money as against both irredeemable paper currency and free silver, and free trade as against all compromise with protection. The platforms of nearly all the Democratic conventions from 1872 until 1896 were written by him either partly or in whole, and, in 1892, he succeeded in reversing in open convention, by a large majority, the report of the platform committee. Foreseeing, in 1896, the course sure to be taken by the Chicago convention, he refused to serve as delegate, and later repudiated the platform.

When the Grand Army of the Republic was invited to hold

its 1895 encampment in Louisville, Mr. Watterson's speech, more than any other single cause, brought an acceptance of the invitation. He did not extend an invitation to the veterans to come to Louisville, but to come South. Speaking on behalf of the Southern people, he said :

"Candor compels me to say that there was a time when they did not want to see you. There was a time when, without any invitation whatever, either written or verbal; without so much as a suggestion of welcome, you insisted on giving us the honor of your company, and, as it turned out, when we were but ill prepared to receive."

He said it would be a pity to refuse to come now, when the invitation was extended, when the preparations were made, and the welcome assured. Then, in serious vein, he evoked the spirit of national fraternity, which he so well knows how to arouse. To have declined an invitation couched in such terms and extended in such a spirit would have been churlish indeed.

Mr. Watterson is the most persuasive of speakers, as he is the most persuasive of writers. Whether he is addressing a turbulent political body or a dignified and imposing audience such as that which faced him when he delivered the dedicatory address at the World's Fair, his words and his manner are equally fitted to the occasion. He knows the value of every tone of the voice, every gesture. Speaking to a political body, his gestures are of the hammering and chopping variety. Resting his right hand in his left, when he makes a point he chops it off or drives it in with a quick, sharp motion. If his audience misses a point he waits until somebody sees it, then everybody does. But his manner is entirely different from this in the delivery of his lectures or in his addresses made to sedate audiences on important public occasions. Then his oratory is ornate, his gestures abundant, graceful, and impressive. His "reading" is as carefully considered as that of a well-trained actor, and one is impressed by the dignity of the orator. He is eloquent, full of dramatic force, yet so scholarly as to satisfy the most exacting requirements of a classic school.

Mr. Watterson's first lecture, "The Oddities of Southern Life," was delivered in 1877, followed a little later by a volume treating the same theme of provincial humor. "Money

THE NOT YORK PUBLIC LIBRARY

ASTOR, LENOX AND TILDEN FOUNDATIONS

and Morals" and "The Compromises of Life" followed the first lecture in the order named, and have been delivered to delighted audiences the country over. His latest lecture, "Abraham Lincoln," is an important addition to the Lincoln literature.

Mr. Watterson's home life is ideal. Loving the freedom and "elbow room" of the country, his desire for long years was to possess a place where he could retire in old age from the noise aud rush and bustle of the city. In 1896 he discovered his ideal place in a plantation of about one hundred acres near Jeffersontown, twelve miles south of Louisville. He purchased the property, beautified it to suit his own ideas, and moved out from Louisville. Here at "Mansfield" he does most of his writing, coming usually to the CourierJournal office every day or every other day when occasion demands.

When asked to specify the qualities most needed for success in journalism, Mr. Watterson said: "The bases are good habits, good sense and good feeling; a good common school education, particularly in the English branches; application both constant and cheerful. All success is, of course, relative. Good and ill fortune play certain parts in the life of every man. If Hoche or Moreau had lived, either might have made the subsequent career of Napoleon impossible. But honest, tireless, painstaking assiduity may conquer ill fortune, as it will certainly advance good fortune. In the degree that a man adds to these essentials larger talents,-peculiar training, breadth of mind, and reach of vision,-his flight will be higher. But here we enter the realms of genius, where there are no laws, at least none that may be made clear for ordinary mortals to follow."

COURAGE AND SELF-CONFIDENCE.

ERSEVERANCE and self-reliance are proof of courage; their continuance depends upon it. By courage, we mean that power of the mind which bears up under all dangers and difficulties.

Fortitude may express one element of this noble virtue, since fortitude is the power that enables one to endure pain. The man of fortitude will endure the amputation of a limb; the man of courage will do that, and also face the cannon's