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             INGERSOLL, A BIOGRAPHICAL APPRECIATION

                           CHAPTER 6.

                   FROM EIGHTEEN EIGHTY-SIX TO
                     EIGHTEEN EIGHTY-EIGHT.

     Ingersoll was now in his fifty-third year, when a large
majority of geniuses have long since done the most and the best of
their work. Astir almost at the dawn, arduously toiling and already
producing in the morning, and achieving their greatest before the
sun was overhead, they have rested in the calm of the afternoon, --
if indeed the night have not too early touched with cooling kiss
their tired brow. This is the rule. But nature delights in
exceptions. Why we do not know. It may be that she tires of
uniformity, of the ceaselessness and invariability of forces, of
the inevitableness of atoms and molecules -- tires of the feast she
has spread for herself -- and that of her own ennui, in some
miraculous way, the exceptional is born. Whatever the explanation,
she made exceptions with Ingersoll, -- exceptions in all the
periods of life. For he produced practically nothing before his
twenty-seventh year: this may be termed the exception of his youth.
He produced nothing before his thirty-seventh year that is either
intellectually or artistically comparable to his best: this may be
termed the exception of his manhood. He did not reach the sublimest
heights of eloquence until he was forty-two years of age; and he
did not cease to produce things that were both intellectually and
artistically comparable to his best until his death: these may be
termed the exceptions of his maturity, -- exceptions far more
remarkable than either of the others. For, in many respects, both
the quantity and the quality of his work considered, his
accomplishments during the last fourteen years of his life were
greater than those of the preceding twenty. During the fourteen
years referred to, he sustained undiminished his former wealth and
exuberance, dowering the future with the profoundest, sublimest,
and tenderest thoughts, producing many of his most powerful
lectures, and, at fifty-eight, his greatest literary masterpiece,
Shakespeare, -- literary masterpiece despite its being a lecture.
Moreover, he did what he had never done before -- entered the
mental tourney against the ablest and most daring knights and
knights-errant of Christendom, finally receiving the coveted prize
in the lists of international controversy. Verily might we say of
him: His heart "there was no winter in't," and his mind "an autumn
't was that grew the more by reaping."

                               2.

     It was pointed out in the preceding section, that nature made
many exceptions with Ingersoll; and it has been written elsewhere,
by an eminent critic, that Ingersoll "was not as other men are."
Not only is the latter true in general; it is true in numerus
particulars. And had this critic deigned the Great Agnostic entry
into the jealously guarded precincts of conventional letters, he
certainly would have written thus: "Ingersoll was not as other
literary men are." For whatever Ingersoll felt, Ingersoll could
think and write -- anywhere. He did not require seclusion, nor even
retirement. He never sought the sequestration of the study -- never
became a literary convict. He was universally opposed to the
penitentiary idea. In its stead, he put the idea of social
intercourse, of company. Unless some other than mere literary 

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considerations prevented, he wrote while in the bosom of his
family. Many of his productions were written while the conversation
of others was in his ears, or while his children were playing about
him with toys and pets, the rabbits and kittens actually capering
over his manuscript. Perhaps this accounts for the deep and tender
notes of human love, the elemental passion, the ripples of
laughter, and even the tears, that linger in his lines.

     But of all the evidence that might be offered in proof of his
capacity for literary production under conditions which undoubtedly
would have been fatal to most others whose names will live long in
literature, none is either more typical or interesting than the
following. On December 18, 1886, he was traveling, by rail, from
New York to Washington, where he was to lecture. "Let's go into the
smoker,' 'Clint,'" he said, rather suddenly, to his brother-in-law,
Mr. Clinton Pinckney Farrell, a constant companion. As soon as the
two were reseated, Ingersoll took from his pocket some old
envelopes or bits of paper and a pencil and began to write. After
continuing uninterruptedly for a considerable time, he handed his
rough manuscript to Mr. Farrell and asked: "Do you think that will
do for 'Harry'? "Would it" do for 'Harry'"? Yes: it would "do for
'Harry'" -- it would do for posterity; for it was Life, the
greatest prose-poem, and one of the greatest poems in any form,
that had been written by an American. It was a laurel fit for
Shakespeare's brow -- a priceless gem whose luster praise could
only dim. The production was immediately published in the Christmas
number of the New York Dramatic Mirror, the editor, Mr. Harrison
Grey Fiske, having requested his great friend to write something
for the paper.

                               3.

     The year 1887 afforded an opportunity for Ingersoll to perform
an act that put still another star in his crown of fame -- an act
that, even had it been the only one of his life, would have
entitled him to the gratitude and affection, not only of every
genuine American, -- every enlightened believer in the sacred
principles upon which this Republic rests, -- but of every other
real friend of physical and mental liberty.

     During the summer of 1886, Mr. Charles B. Reynolds arranged an
itinerary with a view of delivering rationalistic lectures, or of
holding freethought meetings, at various places in New Jersey. His
invitations to the public were extended through the usual media of
newspapers, circulares, posters, and so forth; and the resultant
meetings, attended by some of the best citizens, were peaceful,
orderly, and respectable, when, indeed, they were not rendered
otherwise by a minor element of bias and bigotry, unrestrained by
local officials. Mr. Reynolds encountered no great difficulty from
that source, however, until he reached Boonton. There, while
speaking, -- while peacefully availing himself of the very first
rights of an American citizen, -- his tent was besieged and
destroyed by a mob; he was personally attacked, with all kinds of
missiles; and he undoubtedly would have sustained serious physical
injury had he not succeeded, during the confusion, in evading his
persecutors and summarily quitting the town. An effort to obtain
legal redress by suing the latter for damages, merely elicited the
shamefully hypocritical subterfuge of a countercharge of disturbing

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the peace. But the authorities evidently being blessed with ample
precaution, if with nothing more, "the issue was never joined."
Some time after, but before the excitement in Boonton had subsided,
Mr. Reynolds appeared in Morristown, a few miles distant, and,
without attempting to hold meetings, distributed some copies of a
pamphlet, appending thereto a satirical cartoon of his experience
in Boonton. A number of his persecutors from that place were
instantly on his heels, with the result that the grand jury, under
the colonial "blue laws," found two indictments against him; one
for "blasphemy" in Boonton, the other for "blasphemy" in
Morristown. "Blasphemy"! Only thirty miles from the metropolis of
America, only thirteen years from the twentieth century, on the
very ground where Whitman had sung the songs of democracy, a
citizen of the Republic was to be tried for "blasphemy"! But the
indictment had been found. The law was there. A coiled serpent, it
had lain in lethargy for hundreds of years, beneath both the old
and the new constitutions of New Jersey; and, should a single
conviction result, it could uncoil and show its forked tongue and
cruel fangs to the brave and heroic apostle of mental liberty. It
could raise its horrid head and hiss in the ear of Charles B.
Reynolds: " Two hundred dollars, and imprisonment at hard labor for
twelve months."

     Ingersoll moved gallantly to the defense. And what a defense
it was! -- not merely to win a verdict, not merely for Charles B.
Reynolds, not for any citizen of New Jersey, nor yet for any
citizen of the United States, but for all mankind. The personal
interests of the defendant, the intense public feeling, the legal
aspects of the case, -- its uniqueness -- the only one of its kind
ever tried in New Jersey, and the only one that had been tried in
the United States in over fifty years -- all these must be shut out
of mind, if we would justly appreciate Ingersoll's effort. It
transcends and outreaches the merely local, the provincial, the
ephemeral. If one of the gods of Olympus were on trial, it would
make a fitting defense. It is for all place and all time -- a
symphony of justice for the starlit cathedral of the universe. Let
us listen, in passing, to some of its enrapturing harmonies: --

     "The most important thing in this world is liberty. More
important than food or clothes -- more important than gold or
houses or lands -- more important than art or science -- more
important than all religions, is the liberty of man. * * * Gladly
would I give up the splendors of the nineteenth century -- gladly
would I forget every invention that has leaped from the brain of
Man -- gladly would I see all books ashes, all works of art
destroyed, all statues broken, and all the triumphs of the world
lost -- gladly, joyously would I go back to the abodes and dens of
savagery, if that were necessary to preserve the inestimable gem of
human liberty."

     And after demonstrating that what is theologically called
blasphemy is not the same in all lands at the same time; that what
is blasphemy here is worship there; that what is blasphemy here now
may be worship here to-morrow, and vice versa; that no man can
blaspheme a book or the Infinite; that, in short, theological
blasphemy is an utter impossibility, -- an unreal crime, -- he
inquires; --


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                 "What is real blasphemy?"

And he replies: --

     "To live on the unpaid labor of other men -- that is
blasphemy.

     "To enslave your fellow-man, to put chains upon his body --
that is blasphemy.

     "To enslave the minds of men, to put manacles upon the brain,
padlocks upon the lips -- that is blasphemy.

     "To deny what you believe to be true, to admit to be true what
you believe to be a lie -- that is blasphemy.

     "To strike the weak and unprotected, in order that you may
gain the applause of the ignorant and superstitious mob -- that is
blasphemy.

     "To persecute the intelligent few, at the command of the
ignorant many -- that is blasphemy.

     "To forge chains, to build dungeons, for honest fellow-men --
that is blasphemy.

     "To pollute the souls of children with the dogma of eternal
pain -- that is blasphemy.

     "To violate your conscience -- that is blasphemy."

     It would take us too far across the boundaries of biography to
quote any of the beautiful and touching definitions of "worship"
naturally following here; and there is no time to take even a
hurried glance into the wondrous volume which he described -- the
book of all that is good and useful, tender and true, -- "the bible
of the world," -- which no one can blaspheme. Nor can we do aught
else than to leave to imagination the profound thoughts, the
penetrating and luminous logic, the pathos, the lightnings of wit
and the sun-glints of humor, that lie between Ingersoll's
characteristic "Gentlemen of the Jury" and his final ardent hope
that it will never again be necessary to stand in the temple of
justice "and plead for the Liberty of Speech."

     At the conclusion of Ingersoll's address, the court adjourned
for luncheon. During the adjournment, many of the people who had
been listening to the speaker crowded around him and expressed
agreement with what he had said. Among them was the son of a
minister of the place. When the court reconvened, Ingersoll joined
in a conference of the three judges as to the case; and, in
commenting on the matter, while the jury were deliberating, he told
the judges what the people had said; and he added: "You better
discharge Reynolds, or I will appeal and try the case again and
convert the whole town."

     It redounds none the less to Ingersoll's credit that the jury,
sitting honor-bound in the shadow of a law which they could not
evade, rendered a verdict of guilt. And still less does his credit 

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suffer from the fact that the court, having listened with rapt
attention, imposed, under the same circumstances, a minimum fine
only.

     Fearful of affixing an anticlimax to Ingersoll's splendid
action, I hesitate to add here, and do add only for the sake of
narrative completeness, that the fine, twenty-five dollars, with
costs, amounting in all to seventy-five dollars, was paid by him
that his services were gratuitous; and that while in Morristown, in
connection with the case, he refused an offer of a thousand dollars
if he would go elsewhere, for a few hours, to another court.

                               4.

     Many admirers of Ingersoll's intellect and art must often have
wished, that, in order to assign to his genius the place which they
are so confident it merits, a comparison of at least one of his
productions with those of his distinguished contemporaries, on the
same theme, might be made. The author confesses that he has
experienced this wish, and that the task involved might have been
included in the present work had he not discovered that such task
had already been performed. Although unconsciously, the comparison
desired was admirably effected by Mr. Edward W. Bok, who, after the
death of Beecher, in 1887, requested the latter's friends to
contribute to a volume in his memory. Among the many distinguished
persons to respond (in addition to Ingersoll), were Cleveland, E.
P. Roe, George William Curtis, Talmage, Whittier, Holmes, the Duke
of Argyll, and Gladstone.

     It would here be obviously impracticable to institute even the
briefest comparison of the styles and the methods of these writers
in treating their common theme; and it would be as obviously unjust
to present examples of the style and the method of any particular
one of them. It is fair to state, however, that no one who has not
read the memorial to Beecher can justly appreciate the absolute
uniqueness and the comparative loftiness, both artistic and
intellectual, with which Ingersoll approached the subject before
him. In his entire tribute, -- the longest in the volume, -- not an
act nor an incident, and only one date, in the life of the
preacher, -- the year of his birth, -- is specifically mentioned;
and yet that tribute presents to the gaze of a sorrowing world a
clear, comprehensive, ample view of Henry Ward Beecher. It reveals
the psychological evolution of the famous divine, from his cradle
"in a Puritan penitentiary," until he became "the greatest orator
that stood within the pulpit's narrow curve." It does far more: it
is an analysis, a synthesis, a characterization, a eulogy. It is
the most generous, the most beautiful, the most fitting wreath that
has ever been placed by intellectual hospitality on the tomb of a
fallen hero of a rejected faith. Like the other tributes, it will
of course be read in memory of Beecher; unlike the others, it will
be reread in memory of itself. But, read once in conjunction with
them, it will not have received the inevitable rereading before it
places the reader beyond the reach of wonderment at the statement
elsewhere made by Mr. Gladstone: "Colonel Ingersoll writes with a
rare and enviable brilliancy."




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                               5.

     Through the efforts of Mr. Allen Thorndike Rice, who was the
editor of the North American Review, and who enjoyed a wide
acquaintance with the leading men of his day, Ingersoll became,
during this year, the champion of Rationalism in the most memorable
religious controversy of his century. It was the most memorable,
not only because of the eminence of those taking part, but because
of scope and profundity of argument. Indeed, it would be difficult
to name another trio who, by reason of intellectual attainments and
worldwide recognition, could have brought into a discussion of the
comparative merits of Christianity and Rationalism greater dignity
and authority than the men who, seemingly unmindful of the fate of
predecessors, matched abilities with Ingersoll in 1887 and 1888.

     This memorable intellectual tourney, which may be properly
termed the Field-Gladstone-Manning-Ingersoll Controversy, began in
the North American Review for August, 1887, with An Open Letter to
Robert G. Ingersoll, from Rev. Henry M. Field, D.D., and closed
with the second part of Ingersoll's reply to Cardinal Manning, in
the same magazine, for November, 1888. Field contributed two
papers; Gladstone, one paper; Manning, one paper; Ingersoll, five
papers. First attacked by one of the Christian trio, Ingersoll had
not only the last word with every antagonist, individually, but the
last word in the controversy.

     As a later chapter will present Ingersoll's views of the
"fundamental truths of Christianity," it would be not only
impracticable, but a work of supererogation, to indicate here the
attitude that he assumed toward those "truths," in the lengthy
discussion just mentioned. As to the obvious outcome of the latter,
there is, similarly, as little need as there is space for dilation.
It can be stated, however, alike with fitting brevity and truth,
that it is the sincere wish of every one who is a believer in the
soundness of Rationalism, in general, and in Ingersoll's
controversial supremacy, in particular, and who is familiar with
this truly great controversy, that all may read, with impartiality
and candor, its two sides. That such is the dearest wish of the
most solicitous friends of Ingersoll, if not of those of Field,
Gladstone, and Manning, is evident in the fact that both sides of
the controversy were long since published, in full, in the
authorized edition of Ingersoll's works"

     [NOTE: Walt Whitman said, "On reading Gladstone's reply to
Ingersoll: 'It won't do, Mr. Gladstone; you may try: you have the
right to try -- you try hard: but the Colonel carries too many guns
for you on that line!'" And again: "'Gladstone is no match for
Ingersoll -- at least not in such a controversy. Of course, he is
a great man, or was -- has had a past -- but in questions of the
theological sort, in questions of Homeric scholarship, he is by no
means much. Oh! there will be a funny time of it! Here he put his
two hands together scoop-wise. 'Bob will take him up this fashion,
turn him over (all sides of him), look at him sweetly, ever so
sweetly, smile, then crush him!' -- to illustrate which he worked
his hands together as if to crush their imagined burden -- 'Yes,
crush him, much as a cat would a mouse, till there's no life left
to fool with.'" -- [With Walt Whitman in Camden. by Horace Traubel.
pp 69 and 81.]

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     In the same connection, Professor Huxley wrote as follows: --

                      "4 Marlborough Place, Abbey Road, N.W.,
                                     "London, March, 1889[?].

Dear Colonel Ingersoll:

     "Some unknown benefactor has sent me a series of numbers of
the North American Review containing your battles with various
'Bulls of Bashan' in 1888 -- and the very kindly and appreciative
article of last April about my picador work over here ['Professor
Huxley and Agnosticism,' April, 1889]

     "I write mainly to thank you for it and say that I feel the
force of your admonition to Harrison and myself -- to leave off
quarreling with one another and to join against the common enemy.
The excuse of 'Please, sir, it was the other boy began,' is
somewhat ignoble; but really if you will look at Harrison's article
again, I think you will see there was no help for it.

     "However, he is far too good a man to quarrel with for long,
and I have hope we shall arrive at a treaty of peace and even
cooperation before long. In the meanwhile, I am glad to say that we
are, personally, excellent friends.

     "You are to be congratulated on your opponents. The rabbi is
the only one with any stuff in him -- though, by the way, I have
not read Manning, and do not mean to. I have had many opportunities
of taking his measure -- and he is a parlous windbag -- and nothing
else, absolutely. Gladstone's attack on you is one of the best
things he has written. I do not think there is more than 50 per
cent more verbiage than necessary, nor any sentence with more than
two meanings. If he goes on improving at this rate he will be an
English classic by the time he is ninety. I see that some
Washington paper (I forget the name) has been charging me with
'British insolence' to the people of the United States for my
remarks about Mormonism. Of all people in the world, I should say
I am the last to be fairly accused of want of respect for America
or Americans, and, beyond a little mild raillery, I cannot discover
where I have sinned.

     "But I expect it is only Christian zeal under the mask of
patriotism.

     "I have now finished work for the present and am off to
Switzerland, to get my rickety fabric tightened up for the next
three or four months. I am good for no sustained work, but every
now and then a spurt is possible.

     "Do not answer this letter, I beg, unless the spirit should
move you. My life has been made a burden to me by letter writing,
and now I do as little as possible. But if the spirit should move
you, then Monte Generoso, Mendriso, will be my address for the next
month; and after that, Maloga, Haute Engadine, up to September. I
am yours very faithfully,

                                                T.H. Huxley."


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                               6.

     When, on the death of Roscoe Conkling, in 1888 the people of
the Empire State resolved to pay a fitting tribute to one of her
favorite sons, Ingersoll was unanimously invited, by a joint
legislative committee, to exercise again those powers which have
contributed so much to his reputation as the greatest of orators.
Himself an intimate friend and ardent admirer of the dead
statesman, Ingersoll gave hearty acceptance. His tribute was
delivered at Albany, on the evening of May 9th, the occasion being
a joint session of the legislature. The building in which the
session was held was taxed to its utmost capacity of some 3,500,
more than 2,000 being turned away.

     Those who read the tribute to Conkling with the expectation of
finding a catalogue of his achievements, or a copy of his life's
itinerary, will meet with the same disappointment as those who read
with like expectation the tribute to Beecher. But those who read
either with the presupposition that specific treatment of act and
incident affords the truer and nobler portrait will certainly gain
in knowledge. Ingersoll was not a geologist nor an anatomist -- he
was an artist. As in the landscape of a master you behold the
simple and solitary grandeur of the familiar mountain, so in a
eulogy by Ingersoll you behold, unburdened with petty detail, the
majestic form of a Beecher or a Conkling.

     Endeavoring to realize in few words something of his grace and
adequacy in the present instance, it is impossible to omit his
introduction. We listen as to a Wagnerian prelude: --

     "Roscoe Conkling -- a great man, an orator, a statesman, a
lawyer, a distinguished citizen of the Republic, in the zenith of
his fame and power has reached his journey's end; and we are met,
here in the city of his birth, to pay our tribute to his worth and
work. He earned and held a proud position in the public thought. He
stood for independence, for courage, and above all for absolute
integrity, and his name was known and honored by many millions of
his fellow-men."

     Add to this a few of those epigrammatic characterizations of
which Ingersoll was the consummate master, and we have a perfect
likeness of Conkling. What, for example, could more fittingly
describe the latter's steadfast moral courage than the following
exquisite rhythmical simile? --

     "Nothing is grander than when a strong, intrepid man breaks
chains, levels walls and breasts the many-headed mob like some
great cliff that meets and mocks the innumerable billows of the
sea."

     But who shall say that the reward which the following sentence
prophesies for such as Conkling will not fall, in full measure, to
Ingersoll himself? --

     "When real history shall be written by the truthful and the
wise, these men, these kneelers at the shrines of chance and fraud,
these brazen idols worshiped once as gods, will be the very food of


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scorn, while those who bore the burden of defeat, who earned and
kept their self-respect, who would not bow to man or men for place
or power, will wear upon their brows the laurel mingled with the
oak."

     As an example of the fine, nobly eulogistic tone that pervades
the entire tribute, nothing could be better than the following, on
the imperious tectitade of the dead statesman: --

     "Above his marvelous intellectual gifts -- above all place he
ever reached, -- above the ermine he refused, -- rises his
integrity like some great mountain peak -- and there it stands,
firm as the earth beneath, pure as the stars above."

     If, as I trust, the reader shall have derived from the
preceding an adequate impression of the oratorical quality of the
tribute, as thus far considered, then, and then only, will he be
able justly to appreciate the majestic beauty and grandeur of its
peroration: --

     "He was of the classic mould -- a figure from the antique
world. He had the pose of the great statues -- the pride and
bearing of the intellectual Greek, of the conquering Roman, and he
stood in the wide free air as though within his veins there flowed
the blood of a hundred kings.

     "And as he lived he died. Proudly he entered the darkness --
or the dawn -- that we call death. Unshrinkingly he passed beyond
our horizon, beyond the twilight's purple hills, beyond the utmost
reach of human harm or help -- to that vast realm of silence or of
joy where the innumerable dwell, and he has left with us his wealth
of thought and deed -- the memory of a brave, imperious, honest
man, who bowed alone to death."

     With his conclusion, ex-speaker General Husted and Senator
Coggeshall, respectively, moved and seconded that the legislature
tender to Ingersoll a vote of thanks for an oration which, "in
purity of style, in poetic expression, in cogency of statement, and
in brilliancy of rhetoric, * * * stands unrivaled among the
eulogies of either ancient or modern days. As effective as
Demosthenes, as polished as Cicero, as ornate as Burke, as
scholarly as Gladstone, the orator of the evening, in surpassing
others, has eclipsed himself." The vote was given with the same
rare sense which had prompted the invitation to deliver the
tribute.

     As an oratorical feat the latter reflects even higher credit
on its author when we consider that, at the time of its production,
the Field-Gladstone-Manning-Ingersoll Controversy was in progress;
that, on the night previous to the delivery of the tribute,
Ingersoll was engaged in a public oral discussion of The
Limitations of Toleration, with Hon. Frederic R. Coudert and ex-
Governor Stewart L. Woodford, before the Nineteenth Century Club;
and that he was doubtless contemplating the Decoration Day Oration
which he was shortly to deliver in New York, and which, by the way,
proved to be second only, in power and beauty, to his own oration
of 1882.


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