Essex County herald. [volume] (Guildhall, Vt.) 1873-1964, 1904-10-07


In Its Beneficial Work-Anecdotes
That Depict His Keen wit - How
His Colleagues Gauged His Humor.
A side OF the late Senator George
Frisbie Hoar's character with which
those who knew him only as states
man and scholar are unfamiliar was
his enthusiasm for country life, says
the Boston Herald. Rarely have the
advantages and attractions of boy life
on a New England farm been express
ed more POLITICALLY than by Mr.. Hoar in
a short speech introducing Senator
Lodge at the Inauguration of Carroll d.
Wright as president of Clark college at
Worcester Oct 8, 1902, in which he
showed how great was his colleagues
misfortune in being city bred.
During his many years of public life
Senator HoaT fonnd time TO be ont OF
doors a great deal In the summer. His
home In Worcester is separated from
the neighboring houses by broad lawns
and many trees. so that the outlook
from the house is suggestive of the
country. During recent years the SEN
ator took great pleasure during the
summer in long drives through the
beautiful hilly country surrounding
Worcester aiil often enjoyed the seen
ery from a seat IN a trolley car. He ex-
pressed his feeling about the country
when he said:
There was never better gymnasium
for body and intellect and soul; there
was never filter preparation for col
lege or university or for the greater
university of the world than the life,
from the early settlement of the coun-
try down to day most Of rs can re-
member, ON New England farm.
What an education in the old days,
when the thick wood came up close to
the village; when the boys school
mates were the hawk and the owl and
the raccoon and the muskrat; when he
was schooled in the lore of wood and
pond and river: when he went bare
foot from the frost in the spring to tie
frost in the autumn, and thawed out
the pump and shoyeled out the path
through the snow in the winter morn
ing. and had
Every moral feeling of the soul
Strengthened and braced by breathing In
content
The keen and wholesome Air Of poverty
And drinking from the well of homely life
I'm those days when boy wanted
to have thing done for him he had
to do it himself. He had to keep his
eyes and his ears open to natures con-
stant challenge from wood and field
and river and pond. The pickerel III
the pond and the muskrat in the river
and the hawk in the sky and the wood
chuck in his hole and the gray squir-
rel on the tree top We're calling to him,
Get me if you can" He went out to
his days work with an exhilaration
that nobody but Chaucer. the poet of
the morning. and of joy. gould ade-
.auately describe unless, perhaps, we
except Gray, who has told LIS the story
of English country life and OF ours In
a poem, every line of which is q gem
more precious than the Kohlnoor;
loft did the harvest ito the sickle yteid:
Their burrows oft the stubborn gleoe
has broke.
How jocund did they drive their teasf
. afied.
How how'd the woods beneath lhen
sturdy stroke.
81 account it a great misfortune 10
any man to have missed that school,
Senator Hoar's wit, harmless as a
dove among his private friends, was as
keen as stiletto when welded III the
legislative chamber. might mention
a few instances in point says writer
in the Pittsburg Dispatch.
Senator Ben TElman can be DIT
prudish ON occasions in the use of good
English. Ex-senator Allen of Nebras-
ka, less careful in the niceties OF the
language, was noted as the longest
winded debater in the senate, fact
which lends poirEt to this instance.
In the course of a senate colloquy
Tfllman and Allen disputed over the
pronunciation of the word "situs,' the
South Carolinian contending thai the
81" should be long. while his opponent
stuck to the short sound. The question
was referred to Hoar as authority In
good English.
.The senator from soutH Carolina Is