SenatorⒶapparatus note TillmanⒺexplanatory note, of South Carolina, has been making a speech—day before yesterday—of frank and intimate criticism of the President,—the President of the United States, as he calls him; whereas so far as my knowledge goes, there has been no such functionary as President of the United States for forty years, perhaps, if we except Cleveland. I do not call to mind any other PresidentⒶapparatus note of the United States—there may have been one or two—perhaps one or two, who were not always and persistently presidents of the Republican party, but were now and then for a brief interval really PresidentsⒶapparatus note of the United States. Tillman introduces into this speech the matter of the expulsion of Mrs. Morris from the White HouseⒺexplanatory note, and I think his arraignment of the President was a good and capable piece of work. At any rate, his handling of it suited me very well, and tasted very good in my mouth. I was glad that there was somebody to take this matter up, whether from a generous motive or from an ungenerous one, and give it an airing. It was needed. The whole nation, and the entire press, have been sitting by in meek and slavish silence, everybody privately wishing—just as was my own case—that some person with some sense of the proprieties would rise up and denounce this outrage as it ought to be denounced. Tillman makes a point which charms me. I wanted to use it myself, days ago, but I was already arranging a scheme in another matter of public concernⒺexplanatory note which may invite a brick or two in my direction, and one entertainment of this sort at a time is plenty for me. That point was this: that the President is always prodigal of letters and telegrams to Tom, Dick and Harry, about everything and nothing. He seems never to lack time from his real duties to attend to duties that do not exist. So, at the very time when he should have been throwing off one or two little lines to say to Mrs. Morris and her friends that, being a gentleman, he was hastening to say he was sorry that his idiot assistant secretary had been turning the nation’s official mansion into a sailor boarding-house, and that he would admonish Mr. Barnes, and the rest of the reception-room garrison to deal more gently with the erring in future, and to abstain from any conduct in the White House which would rank as disgraceful in any other respectable dwelling in the land,—Ⓐapparatus note

I don’t like Tillman. His second cousinⒶapparatus note killed an editorⒺexplanatory note, three years ago, without giving that editor a chance to defend himself. I recognize that it is almost always wise, and is often in a manner necessary, to kill an editor, but I think that when a man is a United States Senator he ought to require his second cousin toⒶapparatus note refrain as long as he can, and then do it in a handsome way, running some personal risk himself.Ⓐapparatus note I have not known Tillman to do many things that were greatly to his credit during his political life, but I am glad of the position which he has taken this time. The President has persistently refused to listen to such friends of his as are not insane—men who have tried to persuade him to disavow Mr. Barnes’s conduct and express regret for that occurrence. And now Mr. Tillman uses that point which I spoke of a minute ago, and uses it with telling effect. He reminds the Senate that at the very time that the President’s dignity would not allow him to send toⒶapparatus note Mrs. Morris or her friends a kindly and regretful [begin page 293] line, he had time enough to send a note of compliment and admiration to a prize-fighter in the FarⒶapparatus note WestⒺexplanatory note. If the President had been an unpopular person,Ⓐapparatus note that point would have been seized upon early, and much and disastrous notice taken of it. But, as I have suggested before, the nationⒶapparatus note and the newspapers have maintained a loyal and humiliated silence about it, and have waited prayerfully and hopefully for some reckless person to say the things which were in their hearts, and which they could not bear to utter. Mrs. Morris embarrasses the situation, and extends and keeps alive the discomfort of eighty millions of people, by lingering along near to death, yet neither rallying nor dying; to do either would relieve the tension. For the present, the discomfort must continue. Mr. Tillman certainly has not chloroformed it.

(That BirthdayⒶapparatus note speech of mineⒶapparatus note was the text which I meant to use along here. I don’t want to get too far away from it at any one time and I ought to get back to that.)

WeⒶapparatus note buried good old John Malone the actor,Ⓐapparatus note this morningⒺexplanatory note. His old friends of the Players Club attended in a body. It was the second time in my life that I had been present at a Catholic funeral. And as I sat in the church, my mind went back, by natural process, to that other one, and the contrast strongly interested me. That first one was the funeral of the Empress of Austria, who was assassinated six or eight years ago. There was a great concourse of the ancient nobility of the Austrian Empire;Ⓐapparatus note and as that patchwork of old kingdoms and principalities consists of nineteen states and eleven nationalities, and as these nobles came clothed in the costumes which their ancestors were accustomed to wear on state occasions three or fourⒶapparatus note or five centuries ago, the variety and magnificence of the costumes made a picture which cast far into the shade all the notions of splendor and magnificence which in the course of my life I had accumulated from the opera, the theatreⒶapparatus note, the picture-galleries, and from books. Gold, silver, jewels, silks, satins, velvets; they were all there in brilliant and beautiful confusion, and in that sort of perfect harmony which Nature herself observes and is master of, when she paints and groups her flowers and her forests and floods them with sunshine. The military and civic milliners of the Middle Ages knew their trade. Infinite as was the variety of the costumes displayed, there was not an ugly one, norⒶapparatus note one that was a discordant note in the harmony, or an offenceⒶapparatus note to the eye. When those massed costumes were still, they were softly, richly, sensuouslyⒶapparatus note beautiful; when the mass stirred, the slightest movement set the jewels and metals and bright colors afire, and swept it with flashing lights which sent a sort of ecstasy of delight through meⒺexplanatory note.

But it was different this morning. This morning the clothes were all alike. They were simple, and devoid of color. The Players were clothed as they are always clothed, except that they wore the high silk hat of ceremony. Yet, in its way, John Malone’s funeral was as impressive as had been that of the Empress. There was no inequality between John Malone and the Empress except the artificial inequalities which have been invented and established by man’s childish vanity. The Empress and John were just equals in the essentials of goodness of heart and a blameless life.Ⓐapparatus note Both passed by the onlooker, in their coffins, respected, esteemed, honored; both traveled the same road from the church, bound for the same resting-place—according to Catholic doctrine,Ⓐapparatus note Purgatory—to be removed thence to a better land or to remain in Purgatory accordingly as the contributions of their friends, in cash or prayer, shall determine. The priest [begin page 294] told us, in an admirably framed speech, about John’s destination, and the terms upon which he might continue his journey or must remain in Purgatory. John was poor; his friends are poor. The Empress was rich; her friends are rich. John Malone’s prospects are not good, and I lament it.

Perhaps I am in error in saying I have been present at only two Catholic funerals. I think I was present at one in Virginia CityⒺexplanatory note, Nevada, in the neighborhood of forty years ago—or perhaps it was down in Esmeralda, on the borders of California—but if it happened, the memory of it can hardly be said to exist, it is so indistinct. I did attend one or two funerals—maybe a dozen—out there; funerals of desperadoes who had tried to purify society by exterminating other desperadoes—and did accomplish the purification, though not according to the programⒶapparatus note which they had laid out for this office.

Also, I attended some funerals of persons who had fallen in duels—and maybe it was a duelistⒶapparatus note whom I helped to ship. But would a duelist be buried by the ChurchⒶapparatus note? In inviting his own death, wouldn’t he be committing suicide, substantially? Wouldn’t that rule him out? Well, I don’t remember how it was, now, but I think it was a duelist.