I have a little list of men who about this time passed away amid many antagonisms—­men who were misunderstood while they lived.  I knew their worth.  There was John McKean, the District Attorney of New York, who died in 1883, when criticism against him, of lawyers and judges, was most bitter and cruel.  A brilliant lawyer, he was accused of non-performance of duty; but he died, knowing nothing of the delays complained of.  He was blamed for what he could not help.  Some stroke of ill-health; some untoward worldly [Transcriber’s Note:  original says “wordly"] circumstances, or something in domestic conditions will often disqualify a man for service; and yet he is blamed for idleness, for having possessions when the finances are cramped, for temper when the nerves have given out, for misanthropy when he has had enough to disgust him for ever with the human race.  After we have exhausted the vocabulary of our abuse, such men die, and there is no reparation we can make.  In spite of the abuse John McKean received, the courts adjourned in honour of his death—­but that was a belated honour.  McKean was one of the kindest of men; he was merciful and brave.

There was Henry Villard, whose bankruptcy of fortune killed him.  He was compelled to resign the presidency of the Northern Pacific Railroad Company, to resign his fortune, to resign all but his integrity.  That he kept, though every dollar had gone.  Only two years before his financial collapse he was worth $30,000,000.  In putting the great Northern Pacific Railroad through he swamped everything he had.  All through Minnesota and the North-west I heard his praises.  He was a man of great heart and unbounded generosity, on which fed innumerable human leeches, enough of them to drain the life of any fortune that was ever made.  On a magnificent train he once took, free of charge, to the Yellowstone Park, a party of men, who denounced him because, while he provided them with every luxury, they could not each have a separate drawing-room car to themselves.  I don’t believe since the world began there went through this country so many titled nonentities as travelled then, free of cost, on the generous bounty of Mr. Villard.  The most of these people went home to the other side of the sea, and wrote magazine articles on the conditions of American society, while Mr. Villard went into bankruptcy.  It was the last straw that broke the camel’s back.  It would not be so bad if riches only had wings with which to fly away; but they have claws with which they give a parting clutch that sometimes clips a man’s reason, or crushes his heart.  It is the claw of riches we must look out for.

Then there was Wendell Phillips!  Not a man in this country was more admired and more hated than he was.  Many a time, addressing a big audience, he would divide them into two parts—­those who got up to leave with indignation, and those who remained to frown.  He was often, during a lecture, bombarded with bricks and bad eggs.  But he liked it.  He could endure anything in an audience but silence, and he always had a secure following of admirers.