had finished, 'because there
I see more truth in things. Here the lie has many forms--unique, varied,
ingenious. The rouge and powder on the lady's cheek--they are lies, both
of them; the baronial and ducal crests are lies and the fools who use
them are liars; the people who soak themselves in rum have nothing but
lies in their heads; the multitude who live by their wits and the lack
of them in others--they are all liars; the many who imagine a vain thing
and pretend to be what they are not liars everyone of them. It is bound
to be so in the great cities, and it is a mark of decay. The skirts of
Elegabalus, the wigs and rouge pots of Madame Pompadour, the crucifix of
Machiavelli and the innocent smile of Fernando Wood stand for something
horribly and vastly false in the people about them. For truth you ve got
to get back into the woods. You can find men there a good deal as God
made them' genuine, strong and simple. When those men cease to come here
you'll see grass growing in Broadway.

I made no answer and the great commoner stirred his coffee a moment in
silence.

'Vanity is the curse of cities,' he continued, 'and Flattery is its
handmaiden. Vanity, flattery and Deceit are the three disgraces. I like
a man to be what he is--out and out. If he's ashamed of himself it won't
be long before his friends'll be ashamed of him. There's the trouble
with this town. Many a fellow is pretending to be what he isn't. A man
cannot be strong unless he is genuine.

One of his children--a little girl--came and stood close to him as he
spoke. He put his big arm around her and that gentle, permanent smile of
his broadened as he kissed her and patted her red cheek.

'Anything new in the South?' Mrs Greeley enquired.

'Worse and worse every day,' he said. 'Serious trouble coming! The
Charleston dinner yesterday was a feast of treason and a flow of
criminal rhetoric. The Union was the chief dish. Everybody slashed it
with his knife and jabbed it with his fork. It was slaughtered, roasted,
made into mincemeat and devoured. One orator spoke of "rolling back the
tide of fanaticism that finds its root in the conscience of the people."
Their metaphors are as bad as their morals.

He laughed heartily at this example of fervid eloquence, and then we
rose from the table. He had to go to the office that evening, and I came
away soon after dinner. I had nothing to do and went home reflecting
upon all the great man had said.

I began shortly