Beecher was, indeed, a great, broad, generous man, who absorbed what was good wherever found.  Spencer’s philosophy, Arnold’s insight tempered with sound sense, Ingersoll’s staunch support of high political ends were powers for good in the Republic.  Mr. Beecher was great enough to appreciate and hail as helpful friends all of these men.

Arnold visited us in Scotland in 1887, and talking one day of sport he said he did not shoot, he could not kill anything that had wings and could soar in the clear blue sky; but, he added, he could not give up fishing—­“the accessories are so delightful.”  He told of his happiness when a certain duke gave him a day’s fishing twice or three times a year.  I forget who the kind duke was, but there was something unsavory about him and mention was made of this.  He was asked how he came to be upon intimate terms with such a man.

“Ah!” he said, “a duke is always a personage with us, always a personage, independent of brains or conduct.  We are all snobs.  Hundreds of years have made us so, all snobs.  We can’t help it.  It is in the blood.”

This was smilingly said, and I take it he made some mental reservations.  He was no snob himself, but one who naturally “smiled at the claims of long descent,” for generally the “descent” cannot be questioned.

He was interested, however, in men of rank and wealth, and I remember when in New York he wished particularly to meet Mr. Vanderbilt.  I ventured to say he would not find him different from other men.

“No, but it is something to know the richest man in the world,” he replied.  “Certainly the man who makes his own wealth eclipses those who inherit rank from others.”

I asked him one day why he had never written critically upon Shakespeare and assigned him his place upon the throne among the poets.  He said that thoughts of doing so had arisen, but reflection always satisfied him that he was incompetent to write upon, much less to criticize, Shakespeare.  He believed it could not be successfully done.  Shakespeare was above all, could be measured by no rules of criticism; and much as he should have liked to dwell upon his transcendent genius, he had always recoiled from touching the subject.  I said that I was prepared for this, after his tribute which stands to-day unequaled, and I recalled his own lines from his sonnet: 

    SHAKESPEARE

    Others abide our question.  Thou art free. 
    We ask and ask—­Thou smilest and art still,
    Out-topping knowledge.  For the loftiest hill
    Who to the stars uncrowns his majesty,

    Planting his steadfast footsteps in the sea,
    Making the heaven of heavens his dwelling-place,
    Spares but the cloudy border of his base
    To the foil’d searching of mortality;

    And thou, who didst the stars and sunbeams know,
    Self-school’d, self-scann’d, self-honour’d, self-secure,
    Didst stand on earth unguess’d at—­Better so!