Morning journal and courier., 1890-05-21

tion, and that I afterward looked 1t up to make sure that he had made no mistake. In 1929 Ezekiel Webster died of heart diseaEe in the courthouse at Concord, and Daniel came into possession of the whole of the old farm, where the orphans home now is. He at this time had more or less business to do with his tenants and about the farm, and he applied to me for help iu this, 50 that by 1S40 l got to know him quite well and after that time saw great deal of him.
 "On the Fourth of July, 1S46, he delivered the oration at Salisbury. About 1850 we we were down there and walked out into the pasture together, where he showed me the rock upon which he wrote half of that speech. At this time he told me much about his speeches. Those wrote in early life,' he said, q was afterwnrd ashamed of, and I was sorry that ever had any of them pub lished. Whenever I came across one used to burn it up, but of course there were many that never get hold of. They were much sound and little substance. Joe Denny To- cal critic, said that they were "full of empti ness," and this was a kind of criticism which did me much good. From the day when heard it l altered my style, and tried to avoid sophomoric display and bombay in my writings
 "During the first part of his public career Webster used to spend much time in the preparation of his speeches. He would sit up all night working over them, walking about the room and repeating them aloud. He was always 8 hard worker. In one of the letters he wrote me, and which has since been published, he said: T have never eaten the bread of idleness, but for the last 40 years have worked 12 hours day. Still, in the last part of his life he acquired fa- cility in the arrangement of his thoughts which was simply marvellous. was in Bos- ton at the house of his brother in-law, MT. Page, on the Friday before he made his laet speech in public. We happened to be talk ing over the statement that had appeared in one of the papers that there were no ques- tions of national importance then impending and it would be impossible for Webster to acquit himself well on the morrow. He said: We will not discuss that, but was awake this morning from until on ac- count of pain in my wrists, ,and 50 I arranged my speech in my mind, and if you care to sit down I will repeat it to you as I shall de- liver it tomorrow night He talked to us over an hour, and 50 far ss I could remember he made only two changes in his address the next day; one an illusion to the friend who introduced him, and the other reference to the Methodist conference then being held in the city. In the Revere house he once talked to some of us about his speeches and asked us which we thought would stand the test of time the longest. We decided that it would probably be the second in reply to Hayne He assured us that that mad not required nearly so much time in it's preparation as two others, one of which was the Dartmouth college case. In fact, as has recently ap- peared, he had prepared his celebrated reply to Hayne year before for another purpose.
 ''some have said that he was very careless in money matters, but that was not 50 in his life about here. He was charitable, but did not give away large sums. He almost always used to bring something for some of the old servants in his fathers house, and he used to enjoy going around to sec the people in the neighborhood, talking with them and comparing "reminiscences. We frequently walked all about the country here together, calling them by name or alluding to some incident of his boyhood which they supposed had long been forgotten. Usually he came to Franklin about twice year and spent in all three or four weeks here. Sometimes he would make this his headquarters and go off to the mountains with friends On one such occasion he directed me to open all letters arriving in his absence. Among them were several from secret eraissaries in France and England, about which he was very reticent when handed them to him.
 'I never saw him but once in Marsh6eld. At that time he used to rise between 4 and in the morning, saying that it was then he could do his best work. He showed me many interesting and curious relics which had been given to him. Moss of them were destroyed later when the house was burned All of my personal letters from him l have given away, and many of them have been published"