gely to its stock of harmless pleasure.

But, as this is not exactly a tariff discussion, though a duty, I drop
statistics; let me ask you what would become of the revenues of man if
it were not for "our wives?" We should have no milliners but for "our
wives." But for "our wives" those makers of happiness and furbelows,
those fabricators of smiles and frills, those gentle beings who bias and
scollop and do their sacking at both ends of the bill, and sometimes in
the middle, would be compelled to shut up shop, retire from business,
and return to the good old city of Mantua, whence they came. The world
would grow too rich; albeit, on this promise I do not propose to
construct an argument in favor of more wives. One wife is enough, two
is too many, and more than two are an abomination everywhere, except in
Utah and the halls of our national legislature.

I beg you will forgive me. I do but speak in banter. It has been said
that a good woman, fitly mated, grows doubly good; but how often have we
seen a bad man mated to a good woman turned into a good man? Why, I
myself was not wholly good till I married my wife; and, if the eminent
soldier and gentleman in whose honor we are here--and may he be among us
many and many another anniversary, yet always sixty-three--if he should
tell the story of his life, I am sure he would say that its darkest
hours were cherished, its brightest illuminated by the fair lady of a
noble race, who stepped from the highest social eminence to place her
hand in that of an obscure young subaltern of the line. The world had
not become acquainted with him, but with the prophetic instinct of a
true woman she discovered, as she has since developed, the mine. So it
is with all "our wives." Whatever there is good in us they bring it out;
wherefor may they be forever honored in the myriad of hearts they come
to lighten and to bless. [Loud applause.]

* * * * *

THE PURITAN AND THE CAVALIER

[Speech of Henry Watterson at the eighty-ninth anniversary banquet
of the New England Society in the City of New York, December 22,
1894. Elihu Root, President of the Society, introduced Mr.
Watterson in the following words: "Gentlemen, we are forced to
recognize the truth of the observation that all the people of New
England are not Puritans; we must admit an occasional exception. It
is equally true, I am told, that all the people of the South are