oston public, and the arguments for and against the
proposed change were very fully stated and discussed. Mr. Sumner spoke
several times in favor of the solitary system, and on each occasion
carried off the honors of the meeting. The secretary of the prison
discipline association at that time, a noted conservative, opposed very
strenuously the introduction of the Pennsylvania system. In the course
of the debates, Mr. Sumner turned upon him in a sudden and unexpected
manner, with these words: "In what I am about to say, I shall endeavor
to imitate the secretary's candor, but not his temper." Now the
secretary was one of the magnates of Boston, accustomed to be treated
with great consideration. The start that he gave on being thus
interpellated was so comic that it has impressed itself upon my memory.
The speaker proceeded to apply to this gentleman a well-known line of
Horace, descriptive of the character of Achilles:--

"Impiger, iracundus, inexorabilis, acer."

I confess that to me this direct attack appeared uncalled for, and I
thought that the cause could have been as well advocated without
recourse to personalities.

I once invited Mr. Sumner to meet a distinguished guest at my house. He
replied, "I do not know that I wish to meet your friend. I have outlived
the interest in individuals." In my diary of the day I recorded the
somewhat ungracious utterance, with this comment: "God Almighty, by the
latest accounts, has not got so far as this." Mr. Sumner was told of
this, in my presence, though not by me. He said at once, "What a strange
sort of book your diary must be! You ought to strike that out
immediately."

Sumner was often robbed in the street or at a railroad station; his tall
figure attracting attention, and his mind, occupied with things far
away, giving little heed to what went on in his immediate presence.
Members of his family were wont to say, "It is about time now for
Charles to have his pocket picked again." The fact often followed the
prediction.

Mr. Sumner's eloquence differed much in character from that of Wendell
Phillips. The two men, although workers in a common cause, were very
dissimilar in their natural endowments. Phillips had a temperament of
fire, while that of Sumner was cold and sluggish. Phillips had a great
gift of simplicity, and always made a bee line for the central point of
interest in the theme which he undertook to present. Sumner was
recondite in language and elaborate i