CHAPTER XXX.

FRANCES E. WILLARD.

BY KATE SANBORN.

An After-dinner Speech An Amusing Incident - A Southern Clergyman's Opinion Miss Willard's Ancestry - Memories of Childhood's DaysScenes from the Past - Amusing Extract from Her Diary - Her Keen Sense of Humor-Climbing the Pyramids - "Genteel" Gymnastics"Paul Tucker, of New York, Aged 184"-Miss Willard's Life-work -Delivering Her First Lecture - A Genuine Sensation - Enlisting in the Temperance Work-Liberality and Sense of Justice-Religious Nature -Specimen of Her Oratory - Marvellous Command of Language - Experiences in the South-A Southern Welcome - How She is Appreciated at Home-Universally Loved, Honored, and Respected.

E live so fast nowadays that it is becoming the custom to publish biographies of our notables while they are yet with us. Emerson, Whittier, and Lowell have all been served up by eager admirers. If you are at all distinguished in any direction - from politics to pugilism, literature or leather; if you've made an effort to perch on the North Pole or cross the Atlantic in a row-boat; if you do nothing in particular, but live on to an unconscion

able period, you may be sure that in many a snug pigeon-hole several paragraphs are filed away which will tell the public at the earliest moment after your demise every important event in your career from cradle to grave.

If Queen Victoria hurts her knee, or Bismarck has an unusual twinge of sciatica, or President Arthur labors under a spring siege with catarrh, or a stray shot through a carriage long after a prominent statesman has left it, gives rise to a report of "attempted assassination," then the elaborate obituary notices are taken out, revised, and brought down to latest date.

I used to marvel at the celerity and exactness of these mortuary tributes; now they strike me as very much like that famous impromptu of Sheridan's, which startled England by its brilliancy, but which was found in a desk after his death, written in many forms, labored over, touched and retouched, polished until it shone a perfect gem.

-a

Harriet Martineau, always prudent and provident, wrote her own obituary for the London "daily" with which she had corresponded for years, a very good idea. I only hope Miss Willard may not have a suppressed wish to write mine after reading the closing pages of this book, for I have promised to "do" that noble woman, and as the various sketches are to be arranged alphabetically, I am sure W is the last letter that can boast of being the initial letter of any famous American name. It was Gail Hamilton, I think, who said with wit and truth that there was a strong tendency among American women to sit down on the curbstone and write each others lives. I feel the awkwardness of the situation, and would like to run away, as I once did after listening to the heroine of my story. May I tell you about it?

It was two years ago, at the anniversary dinner of "Sorosis," in New York, and I had half promised the persuasive president (Jennie June), that I would say "something." The possibility of being called up for an after-dinner speech! Something brief, terse, sparkling, original, satisfactory — oh, you know the agony! I had nothing in particular to say; wanted to be quiet and enjoy the treat. But between each course, from oysters to black coffee, I tried hard, while apparently listening to my neighbor, to think up something "neat and appropriate." To those who have not the gift of ready, graceful, off-hand utterance before a crowd, this coming martyrdom, which increases in horror as you advance with deceptive gayety from roast to game, and game to ices, is really one of the severest trials of social life. Miss Willard happened to be one of the honored guests that day, and was called on first. I had previously indulged in an ignorant and extremely foolish horror of those crusading temperance fanatics.

I used to marvel at the celerity and exactness of these mortuary tributes; now they strike me as very much like that famous impromptu of Sheridan's, which startled England by its brilliancy, but which was found in a desk after his death, written in many forms, labored over, touched and retouched, polished until it shone a perfect gem.

Harriet Martineau, always prudent and provident, wrote her own obituary for the London "daily" with which she had corresponded for years, a very good idea. I only hope Miss Willard may not have a suppressed wish to write mine after reading the closing pages of this book, for I have promised to "do" that noble woman, and as the various sketches are to be arranged alphabetically, I am sure W is the last letter that can boast of being the initial letter of any famous American name. It was Gail Hamilton, I think, who said with wit and truth that there was a strong tendency among American women to sit down on the curbstone and write each others lives. I feel the awkwardness of the situation, and would like to run away, as I once did after listening to the heroine of my story. May I tell you about it?

It was two years ago, at the anniversary dinner of "Sorosis," in New York, and I had half promised the persuasive president (Jennie June), that I would say "something." The possibility of being called up for an after-dinner speech! Something brief, terse, sparkling, original, satisfactory — oh, you know the agony! I had nothing in particular to say; wanted to be quiet and enjoy the treat. But between each course, from oysters to black coffee, I tried hard, while apparently listening to my neighbor, to think up something "neat and appropriate." To those who have not the gift of ready, graceful, off-hand utterance before a crowd, this coming martyrdom, which increases in horror as you advance with deceptive gayety from roast to game, and game to ices, is really one of the severest trials of social life. Miss Willard happened to be one of the honored guests that day, and was called on first. I had previously indulged in an ignorant and extremely foolish horror of those crusading temperance fanatics.