I was present that day, when Mr. Andrew Carnegie decided
upon the gift of a library to the city of Washington. I was in one
of the rooms of the White House talking with Governor Lowndes, of
Maryland, and Mr. B.H. Warner, of Washington, who was especially
interested in city libraries. Mr. Carnegie entered at the opposite
end of the room. We greeted each other with heartiness, not having
met since we crossed the ocean together some time before. I asked
Mr. Carnegie to permit me to introduce him to some friends. After
each introduction the conversation immediately turned upon
libraries, as Mr. Carnegie was then constantly presenting them in
this and other lands. Before the conversation ended that day, Mr.
Carnegie offered $250,000 for a Washington library. I have always
felt very happy at having had anything to do with that interview,
which resulted so gloriously."

Dr. Talmage's opinions upon the aftermath of the Spanish war were widely
quoted at this time.

"The fact is this war ought never to have occurred," he said. "We
have had the greatest naval officer of this century, Admiral Schley,
assailed for disobeying orders, and General Shatter denounced for
being too fat and wanting to retreat, and General Wheeler attacked
because of something else. We are all tired of this investigating
business. I never knew a man in Church or State to move for an
investigating committee who was not himself somewhat of a hypocrite.
The question is what to do with the bad job we have on hand. I say,
educate and evangelise those islands."

As he wrote he usually talked, and these words are recollections of the
subjects he talked over with me in his quieter study hours. They were
virile talks, abreast of the century hurrying to its close, full of
cheerfulness, faith, and courage for the future.

He was particularly distressed and moved by the death of Chief Justice
Field, in April, 1899. It was his custom to read his sermons to me in
his study before preaching. He chose for his sermon on April 16, the
decease of the great jurist, and his text was Zachariah xi, 2: "Howl fir
tree, for the cedar has fallen." Many no doubt remember this sermon, but
no one can realise the depths of feeling with which the Doctor read it
to me in the secret corner of his workroom at home. But his heart was in
every sermon. He said when he resigned from his church:--

"The