r it may have been 1906), when I was visiting
Boston--at least, I think it was Boston; it may have been
Washington (my memory is so bad).

I happened to run across a most amusing man whose name I
forget--Williams or Wilson or Wilkins; some name like that--and
he told me this story while we were waiting for a trolley car.

I can still remember how heartily I laughed at the time; and
again, that evening, after I had gone to bed, how I laughed
myself to sleep recalling the humor of this incredibly humorous
story. It was really quite extraordinarily funny. In fact, I can
truthfully affirm that it is quite the most amusing story I have
ever had the privilege of hearing. Unfortunately, I've forgotten
it.

_Biographical Facts_

Public speaking has much to do with personalities; naturally, therefore,
the narration of a series of biographical details, including anecdotes
among the recital of interesting facts, plays a large part in the
eulogy, the memorial address, the political speech, the sermon, the
lecture, and other platform deliverances. Whole addresses may be made up
of such biographical details, such as a sermon on "Moses," or a lecture
on "Lee."

The following example is in itself an expanded anecdote, forming a link
in a chain:

_MARIUS IN PRISON_

The peculiar sublimity of the Roman mind does not express
itself, nor is it at all to be sought, in their poetry. Poetry,
according to the Roman ideal of it, was not an adequate organ
for the grander movements of the national mind. Roman sublimity
must be looked for in Roman acts, and in Roman sayings. Where,
again, will you find a more adequate expression of the Roman
majesty, than in the saying of Trajan--_Imperatorem oportere
stantem mori_--that Caesar ought to die standing; a speech of
imperatorial grandeur! Implying that he, who was "the foremost
man of all this world,"--and, in regard to all other nations,
the representative of his own,--should express its
characteristic virtue in his farewell act--should die _in
procinctu_--and should meet the last enemy as the first, with a
Roman countenance and in a soldier's attitude. If this had an
imperatorial--what follows had a consular majesty, and is almost
the grandest story upon record.

Marius, the man who rose to be seven times consul, was in a
dungeon, and a slave was sent in with comm