The age-herald. [volume] (Birmingham, Ala.) 1897-1902, 1899-04-16

shv recluse Hawthorne caught the Infection
and IN his notes records his trepdation as
he rose for the first time to rehearse the
trite tale of kindred blood common lam
guage and Milton and Shakespeare.
Bayard. the narrow bigot of his time, an
arid and desiccated product of a creed out
worn, surpassed all his associates in
trucking subservience, and in formal Or
alton before British audience deliberately
revied and condemned the Industrial poll
cies of his country If this fawhing syco-
phancy were mutual It might be intellibi-
BILE but whatever the English ambassadors
to the United States may think, they OBJ
serve decorous silence.
Sir Edward Thornton was here from 1867
to 1881. and during his fourteen years of ser
vice no newspaper reporter nor POSTMASTER
ever ELECTED a syllable from him about the
kindred blood the common tongue, or
American literature Sackville Vests only
public deliverance was a letter incautiously
written to a republican deeoy duck in Cali
fornia that abruptly ended his occupancy
of the British legation.
Sir Julian Pauncefote may have vocab-
ulary, but he is inarticulate. 1t will be
good omen If Joseph Choate will efface him
self and initiate Sir Julian He has begun
badly. but an influenza fortunately inter-
rupted his volubility and has afforded him
an interval for reflection. 1t is to be hoped
that he will wait till we have heard from
Sir Julian. The people of the United
States have no overweenng love for Great
Britain. We all know that she is and al
ways has been our only political and indus
trial enemy among the great powers of the
earth. 1t is through no fault or neglect of
hers that the United States was not blotted
from the map. She stands alone. detached
by her greed and cruel rapacity, without
a friend among the nations. She has wait
ed long before making overtures. Having
failed to destroy, she now wishes to pro-
pitiate. 1t will be the morning of better
day for American diplomacy and for the
dignity of the American people II Ambassa-
dor Choate in his next and last public APP
pearance in London, or elsewhere in tho
kingdom. takes occasion to say with unim-
passioned emphasis that the malevolent in
juries of century have been neither expi-
ated nor forgotten, and while we intend to
maintain just and amiable relations with
England will neither love nor fear her.
Apropos of Choate, recall diyerting in
cident growing out of his patronymic. He
was in Washington on business before tho
supreme court, and his partner, Evarts,
who was then in the senate, gave a dinner
in his honor. AS 1t was not a function, the
relation of this anecdote is, of course, fla
grant breach of decorum, but perhaps the
statute of limitations may have run. Dur
ing a lull in the conversation an eminent
justice of the supreme court, then but not
now on the bench, turned to the guest of
honor and inquired with sonorous distnct-
ness:
"By the way. Mr.. Choate, are you any re-
lation to the GREAT Choate?"
This maladroit assumption of the infe-
riority of Joseph to his cous n Rufus, espe-
cially as he had that afternoon made an
argument before the tribunal of which the
querist was a member. caused silence
like that which occurred in heaven, accord
ing to ST. John, about the space of half an
hour. at the opening of the Seventh Seal.
The stiffness was audible, till Senator
Hoar, with the intuition of genius. turned
to the embarrassed jurist with benevolent
smile and chirped In his inimitable falsetto:
Brother Jones, you should have said The
OTHER great Choate, and so the deadlock
was broken.
The faux pas of the Judge was not I'M
natural, for Rufus Choate was justly de-
scribed as great In no other American
have qualities usually considered incompa-
tible been exhibited in such extraordinary
activity. He was a planet with the orbit
and splendor of a meteor.