Washington standard. [volume] (Olympia, Wash. Territory) 1860-1921, 1880-03-12

enjoyed Nature more intensely; bu. he
never sojourned with her. His friend,
Charles q. Loripg, one Of his competi-
tors for the leadership o! the Suffolk
bar, once invited him to pass sum-
mer day at his beautiful resideIce on
the Beverly shore. Mr.. Choate was
full of enthusiasm as he walked among
the woodland paths or gazed at the
varying aspects Of sky and ocean; he
doubtless stored mp III his mind images
OF natural beau y which flashed out
aiterward in many popular speech or
legal argument; hut he exhausted the
capacity Of the place to feed his eye and
Imagination in half dozen hours.
My Dear LorinG,' he said, in parting,
there has not been "a twentieth part
of minute since | entered this terres-
trial paradise that have not enjoyed to
the top Of my bent; but let me tell you
that should you contine me here for a
week, apart from my work and books,
| know that l should die from utter
eapHi. You are fortunate in being able
sereney to delight in it day after day."
If he had been asked to pass fortnight
with Webster at Marshtield or at his
New Hampshire farm, and had accom-
panied him day after day in his shoot
ing or fishing expeditions, not even
Websters conversation could have
saved him from being devoured with
an impatient desire to escape from the
monotony of such an existence. All
the eccentric originals Of the neigbor-
hood, whom Webster delighted in year
after year, he would ha, e delighted in
for day, and then dismissed them
from his mind as intolerable bores; the
mountain or ocean scenery might nave
enthralled him tor few days more !;
but the shooting and fishing, in which
Webster took such pleasure, would
have seemed to him scandalous waste
of time, which might have been more
probably bestowed on Eschylus and
Aristophanes, on Thucydides and Tao
titus, on Hooker and Jeremy Taylor, on
Bacon and Burke, on Shakespeare and
Milton.
In one particular Choate excelled
Webster-that of constant high bred
courtesy to men and woman Of all
ranks.
In his arguments for persons who
had become complicated in seemingly
criminal acts of which they were, at
least. not so guilty as they were &C.
cused of being, his mastery way of
putting himself, by Imagination, in the
place of his clients, and exhibiting all
the pathos that could be elected from
their embarrassments and struggles,
often drenched his clients themselves
in irrepressible tears. They hardly
knew before what heroes and martyrs
they We're. They wept at the eloquent
recapitulation of what they had sui
fered and done; they became poetic
personages, worthy of the pen of Scott
or Dickens; indeed. they we're so much
affected, that they considered that
Lawyer Choate should charge little
for presenting them before the COM
munity in their true light, and there
fore often forgot or neglected to pay
him anything. His dramatic power in
exhibiting the inferior feelings of the
half guilty, the quarter guilty, and the
guilty who are perfectly innocent in
their own conceit, and therefore regard
prosecution as a persecution, was so
wonderful that many of the persons
who were acquitted through his exer-
tons never paid him what they would
have paid an advocate who had less
identified himself with their interests
and characters. Indeed, after his work
was done, he appeared himself to set
modest estimate on its value. The
occasions when he obtained large fees
were due to his partner, who made the
contracts beforehand; for Mr.. Choate
generally considered the obstacles in
the way of getting a verdict for his
clients formidable until the case was
settled, and was Indifferent to the
amount of the fee only after he had
succeeded.
But he was not only an accomplished
lawyer; he was, at times, an eager poll
tician. l will try to recall some SEN
fences in his popular addresses. In
campaign appeal to the Boston Wings,
when Polk, a comparatively unknown
man. was the Democratic candidate for
the Presidency, Mr.. Choate gave full
play to his peculiar wit and fancy.
I'VE WILL" he exclaimed, "retmm
James K. Polk to the Convention that
discocered him !" In depicting Folks |
"Sioa', Ac ucCidTcu tudI uc WOulu
"'disappear like the lost Plead, where
no telescope could find him y In
reading an "open latter" of the Free
soil Democrats, surreptitiously
published in the New York Eceniug
Post, he paused at the end, as if over
come by surprise. Il find, gentlemen,
that this letter is marked private and
confidential, and such, I trust. you
will consider it J. The idea of contid-
ing a secret of that sort to three thou
sand people struck every man in the
audience with a sense of its humor, and
there was roar of applause, which for
some minutes prevented the orator
from proceeding. On another occa-
sion he addressed Union meeting in
Fanueil Hall. composed equally of
Wings and Democrats. wish types
could express the wit of one passage by
indicating the rise, culminatiop. and
sudden fall of his voice. " You Whig!'
he exclaimed. land YOU DEMocRAT
WHO ARE JUST AS GOOD AS A
WHlG-in your own opinion r. The
last clause should be printed in the
smallest type which the printer can