Liverpool, I asked him if he had not been
worried.

"Oh, no," he said; "I was sure that good fortune would bring us through
all right."

He was the only lawyer I ever knew who could afford to turn away from a
seat on the bench of the Supreme Court of the United States. He had
never known misfortune. Had he ever been compelled to pass through
hardships he would have been President in 1878. Because of certain
peculiarities, known to himself, as well as to others, he turned aside
from politics. Although neither Mr. Conkling nor Mr. Blaine could have
been President while both lived, good people of all parties hoped for
Mr. Conkling's recovery.

The national respect shown at the death-bed of the lawyer revealed the
progress of our times. Lawyers, for many years in the past, had been
ostracised. They were once forbidden entrance to Parliament. Dr. Johnson
wrote the following epitaph, which is obvious enough:--

God works wonders now and then;
Here lies a lawyer an honest man.

THE THIRTEENTH MILESTONE

1888-1889

The longer I live the more I think of mercy. Fifty-six years of age and
I had not the slightest suspicion that I was getting old. It was like a
crisp, exquisitely still autumn day. I felt the strength and buoyancy of
all the days I had lived merging themselves into a joyous anticipation
of years and years to come. For a long while I had cherished the dream
that I might some day visit the Holy Land, to see with my own eyes the
sky, the fields, the rocks, and the sacred background of the Divine
Tragedy. The tangible plans were made, and I was preparing to sail in
October, 1889. I felt like a man on the eve of a new career. The
fruition of the years past was about to be a great harvest of successful
work. I speak of it without reserve, as we offer prayers of gratitude
for great mercies.

Everything before me seemed finer than anything I had ever known. Few
men at my age were so blessed with the vigour of health, with the elixir
of youth. To the world at large I was indebted for its appreciation, its
praise sometimes, its interest always. My study in Brooklyn was a room
that had become a picturesque starting point for the imagination of
kindly newspaper men. They were leading me into a new element of
celebrity.

One morning, in my house in Brooklyn, I was asked by a newspaper in New
York if it might send a reporter to spend the day with me there. I had
no objection. The reporter came after b