, and yet I cannot give them
commissions because I am blocked by this small and unworthy spirit of
hindrance."

For some minutes the warm outburst went on. The white, beardless face
flushed up under the curls, and his hands waved in rapid gesture. "A
capital speech, your Excellency," cried out Sumner, "a most capital
speech!" and he led the way in a peal of applause in which the crowd
in the chamber universally joined, and which must have rung across
Beacon Street to the Common far away. My feeble finger had touched the
button which brought this unexpected downpour, and for the moment I
was unpleasantly in the limelight.

"Now introduce me to your selectmen," said Governor Andrew, stepping
to my side. I led the way to the corner to which the delegation had
retreated, and presented my friends in turn. His manner changed. He
was polite and friendly, and when, after a hand-shaking, he went back
to his table, we felt we had not understood the situation and that our
petition should have been withheld. For my part, I enlisted at once as
a private and went into a strenuous campaign.

Sumner was intrepid, high-purposed, and accomplished, but what is
the world saying now of his judgment? His recent friendly but
discriminating biographer, Prof. George H. Haynes, declares that
even in matters of taste he was at fault. The paintings he thought
masterpieces, his gift to the Boston Museum of Fine Arts, are for the
most part consigned to the lumber-room. In sculpture his judgment
was not better. As to literary art, his writing was ponderous and
over-weighted with far-fetched allusion. The world felt horror at
the attack of Brooks, but the whole literature of invective contains
nothing more offensive than the language of Sumner which provoked it
and which he lavished right and left upon opponents who were sometimes
honourable. It was in the worst of taste.

In great affairs his service was certainly large. Perhaps he was at
his highest in the settlement of the _Trent affair_, but his
course in general in guiding our foreign relations was able
and useful. He put his hand to much reconstruction of ideas and
institutions. Often he made, but too often he marred. He suffered
sadly from the lack of a sense of humour. "What does Lincoln mean?"
he would blankly exclaim, impervious alike to the drollery and to the
keen prod concealed within it. In his fancied superiority he sought to
patronise and dominate the rude Illinoisian. The case is