The evening telegraph. [volume] (Philadelphia [Pa.]) 1864-1918, 1870-02-19

cons rich birth-right was true mother-wit,
the power of winning hearts, and restless
ambition Our Connecticut schoolmistress,
with a coal of fire in her heart in some un-
searchable way endowed her son with her
magnetism She made him the administrators
of her ungratif ed yearnings; her secret am
bitions had their fulhlment in him, even unto
sickness of life. .. NI rI '.l.
What this magnetism was may be guessed
when men of calm blood like the late George
l.. Sterns, on leaving him, would say, 'What
captivating man Senator Lane isl His
| tones are as sweet as q woman's." Flushed
with triumph or confident of success, he was
| irresistible, his voice soft and musical and
his manner confding. His presence could
be as distinctly felt as a register, and there
was companionship even in his silence. 1t
will astonish some to whom his name was
once an imprecation and terror to know that
scholarly men and men of travel would pro-
nounce him the most pleasing person they
ever met, though there was not common
thought between them. If in the plentitude
Of his power he was surrounded by knaves
and vagabonds, it was not only because power
is warming and grateful, but the animal
spirits of a successful man are themselves
charm. .an.fr. l.
How much of his attraction was due to
sincere delight in his humanity it would be
hard to say, for his unconscious power of ad-
instability to his surroundings was marvel
lous. Like that versatile Chelonian, the mud
turtle of negro superstition, he contained
within his shell the flavor of every creature
dear to the palate of man--fish, flesh,
or fowl In the midst of Christians, he
had been carefully educated for the
Church: among scofers, religion was
but cloak for hypocrisy In Kansas he
wore the fells of wild beasts: in Bos-
ton he appeared in black broadcloth and
white cravat, and whined through his nose
as religiously as the melodeon of country
parsonage Among New Englanders, his
mother was Connecticut schoolmarm;"
| with Southerners, he was Kentuckian;
among Western men, Hoosier; and thus it
| was his real origin was as great mystery as
| the source of the Nile. Like another French
man we wot of, he bowed to the Crescent or
| the Cross as occasion required, The grim
chieftain s flow of politeness was as natural as
| the breath he drew, and as painless with
| everyday people it is q morbid secretion, like
| the pearl in the oyster.
But once in the presence of an undeclared
enemy, and his impulse to persuasion and
| all the little arts of Cancellation became an
| uncomfortable passion. Surveying his sus-
| pected antagonist, whose only sign of dislike
was felonious evasion of the eye, he threw
| himself, O storm of snow, wind, and rain,
against him; and even hearts of granite
| yielded to the elemental war at last. A long
| ing for appreciation would turn him from
| friends to surmount tremendous natural an
| tipathies, and curry favor with hearts that
mantled and croamed with hatred.
| "What" said he, meeting on the roadside
a member of Bourbon county convention
| packed against him-"whatl vote against
| Jim Lane, and come from Indiana!" in his
most wheedling notes and q smile that fairly
| lifted the subject out of his boots. Enough.
| The fellow went to the convention next day
and log-rolled for Lane. E
| Reader, now smiling as in scorn, ask not,
''Who was Jim Lane, of whom such imperti-
nences are recorded" 2" 1 confess that the
1 famous rejoinder of Clay to the old hunter,
which superannuated Wings chuckle over as
a triumph of happy repartee, always inspired
me with similar contempt What Henry
Clay was to early Kentuckians was Lane to
the pioneers of Kansas, and he represented q
society not one whit behind in general intel
lgence.
His mother, with frequent ambition
designed her son for the pulpit, and perhaps
the maternal instinct was right He had al
the constituents of the snowy preacher, with
the superadded advantage that in no atom o.
his could trace of veneration be found. Fol
the modern purposes of those holy men-f
railroad banquet or trades union meeting
he would surely have made his mark. II
''James, he would make the good woman
say, ''the only obstacle between you and tn,
pulpit is your insuperable modesty AL
that he had of good he owed to her. When sh
died that great marsupial the world took hin
into her pouch and completed his education
and most of the i'll that was in him, do no
doubt, was impaired by the foster mother.
The pious wish of his mother was thwartet
in way she little suspected, for the insidiou
immortality Of certain publication of TIA
American Sunday School Union, whose pat
tern boy was rewarded for life of virtue b,
a seat in Congress, gave secular direction
, to her sons aspirations. Discarding the blacl
coat, he went up into the preparatory depart
' ment and by way of preface, to show tina
some things may be done as we'll as others
made fifty thousand dollars in one winter
} out of pork, with the easy dexterity that Herr
: mann turns a pudding out of your hat
> This was only q preliminary flourish
{ like the swans and other fabulous animal
, of the commercial schoolmaster. He proved
y that man who is great in one calling may b
so in another, and disproved for ever tn
{ popular fallacy that man must gradual
J from the poor-house to command pecuniar
4 success. Because Rufus Hatch carried
l peddler's pack, Vanderbilt rowed huckster
boat and Helmbold was a cabin-boy,
is not absolutely necessary for man 9
genius to be one of these, any NOR
= than roast pig requires whole house fo
{ fuel. Let those who esteem it a misfortun
y that they were born into decent ivin
; take heart, for, though the chances al
i against them, and it is about as cas-
l. for the son of rich man to make an il
y dependent fortune as for his father to ente
n the kingdom of heaven, yet nothing is denie
to well-directed effort: and i could point