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قراءة كتاب The Scrap Book, Volume 1, No. 6 August 1906
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THE SCRAP BOOK.
| Vol. I. |
AUGUST, 1906. |
No. 6. |
THE TOMB OF NAPOLEON.
By ROBERT G. INGERSOLL.
A little while ago I stood by the grave of the old Napoleon—a magnificent tomb of gilt and gold, fit almost for a deity dead—and gazed upon the sarcophagus of rare and nameless marble, where rest at last the ashes of that restless man. I leaned over the balustrade and thought about the career of the greatest soldier of the modern world.
I saw him walking upon the banks of the Seine contemplating suicide. I saw him at Toulon. I saw him putting down the mob in the streets of Paris. I saw him at the head of the army in Italy. I saw him crossing the bridge at Lodi with the tricolor in his hand. I saw him in Egypt, in the shadow of the Pyramids. I saw him conquer the Alps and mingle the eagles of France with the eagles of the crags. I saw him at Marengo, at Ulm, and at Austerlitz. I saw him in Russia, when the infantry of the snow and the cavalry of the wild blast scattered his legions like winter's withered leaves. I saw him at Leipsic in defeat and disaster—driven by a million bayonets back upon Paris—clutched like a wild beast—banished to Elba. I saw him escape and retake an empire by the force of his genius. I saw him upon the frightful field of Waterloo, where chance and fate combined to wreck the fortunes of their former king. And I saw him at St. Helena, with his hands crossed behind him, gazing out upon the sad and solemn sea.
I thought of the widows and orphans he had made, of the tears that had been shed for his glory, and of the only woman who ever loved him, pushed from his heart by the cold hand of ambition. And I said I would rather have been a French peasant and worn wooden shoes; I would rather have lived in a hut with a vine growing over the door, and the grapes growing purple in the amorous kisses of the autumn sun; I would rather have been that poor peasant, with my wife by my side knitting as the day died out of the sky, with my children upon my knees and their arms about me; I would rather have been this man and gone down to the tongueless silence of the dreamless dust, than to have been that imperial personation of force and murder known as Napoleon the Great.
The Latest Viewpoints of Men Worth While
President Roosevelt Calls Our Supreme Bench the Most Dignified and Powerful Court in the World—Professor Peabody Describes the German Kaiser as a Man of Peace—Chancellor MacCracken Discusses Teaching as a Profession for College Graduates—Ex-Secretary Herbert Denies that the Confederate Soldiers Were Rebels—With Other Notable Expressions of Opinion from Speakers Entitled to a Hearing.
Compiled and edited for The Scrap Book.
WHAT THE SUPREME COURT STANDS FOR.
The Members of Our Highest Tribunal
Have to Be Not Only Jurists but
Constructive Statesmen.
Justice Brown, of the Supreme Court of the United States, has retired from active service. Before he laid aside the robes of his office a dinner was given in his honor by the bar of the District of Columbia, and on this occasion short speeches were delivered by several prominent men, including President Roosevelt, who said:
In all the world—and I think, gentlemen, you will acquit me of any disposition to needless flattery—there is no body of men of equal numbers that possesses the dignity and power combined that inhere in that court over which, Mr. Chief Justice, you preside. Owing to the peculiar construction of our government, the man who does his full duty on that court must of necessity be not only a great jurist, but a great constructive statesman.
The Men and the Tradition.
It has been our supreme good fortune as a nation that we have had on that court, from the beginning to the present day, men who have been able to carry on in worthy fashion the tradition which has thus made it incumbent upon the members of the court to combine in such fashion the qualities of the great jurist and of the constructive statesman.
Mr. Justice, we Americans are sometimes accused of paying too much heed to mere material success, the success which is measured only by the acquisition of wealth. I do not think that the accusation is well founded.
A great deal of notoriety attaches, and must attach, to any man who acquires a great fortune. If he acquires it well and uses it well, he is entitled to and should receive the same meed of credit that attaches to any other man who uses his talents for the public good.
The Nation Sound at Bottom.
But if you will turn to see those whom in the past the nation has delighted to honor, and those in the present whom it delights to honor, I think that you will all agree that this nation is sound at bottom in the bestowal of its admiration in the relative estimate it puts upon the different qualities of the men who achieve prominence by rendering service to the public.
The names that stand out in our history in the past are the names of the men who have done good work for the body politic, and in the present the names of those whom this people really hold in highest honor are the names of the men who have done all that was in them in the best and most worthy fashion.
In no way is it possible to deserve better of the republic than by rendering sane, honest, clear-sighted service on the bench, and, above all, on the highest bench of this country.
Men who fear for our democratic institutions too often forget the Supreme Court. Macaulay evidently forgot it when he described our Constitution as "all sail and no anchor."
THE GERMAN KAISER'S CAMPAIGN FOR AMITY.
In His Farewell Audience to Professor
Peabody, of Harvard, He Said:
"We Must Stand Together."
Back from Berlin, where he occupied for a time a chair at the University, under the existing arrangement for exchanges, Professor Peabody, of Harvard, is aiming to straighten the American conceptions of Germany. The Kaiser, he declares, is not a war-lord, but a man of peace, working in the interest of civilization—a peace-lord, so to speak.
Speaking to a German audience in New York a few weeks ago, Professor Peabody said:
There seems to be a general idea abroad that the German Emperor is constantly looking about for somebody to fight.
Nothing could be farther from the truth. Germany, by virtue of the commercial expansion it now is working for, is pledged to maintain the peace of the world, so far as her own honor will allow.
The German Emperor, speaking at the opening of the Reichstag, said:
"I consider it the most sacred duty imposed upon me by an all-wise Providence to preserve peace."
The German Emperor has been misjudged as few characters have been in history when he has been described as a careless, heartless intriguer, always ready to strike a blow.
I do not think I am betraying any confidence if I repeat to you a phrase which fell from the lips of the emperor at the very last audience with which