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Mr. Pearce was a type of the gentleman of the old school. Tall,
with a commanding figure, expressive features, blue eyes, and light
hair, he was a brilliant conversationalist and a welcome guest at
dinner.

Senator William C. Preston, of South Carolina, was not only one of
the foremost orators in the Senate, but a delightful conversationalist,
with an inexhaustible fund of reminiscence and anecdote. One of
his colleagues in the House of Representatives, Mr. Warren R. Davis,
of the Pendleton district, was equally famed as a story-teller,
and when they met at a social board they monopolized the conversation,
to the delight of the other guests, who listened with attention
and with admiration.

One evening--as the story is told--at a dinner-party, over the
Madeira and walnuts, which formed the invariable last course in
those days, Mr. Preston launched forth in a eulogium on the
extraordinary power of condensation, in both thought and expression,
which characterized the ancient Greek and Latin languages, beyond
anything of the kind in modern tongues. On it he literally
"discoursed eloquent music," adorning it with frequent and apt
illustration, and among other examples citing the celebrated
admonition of the Spartan mother to her warrior son on the eve of
battle--"With your shield or upon it!" The whole party were
delighted with the rich tones and the classic teachings of the
gifted colloquist, except his equally gifted competitor for
conversational laurels, who, notwithstanding his enforced admiration,
sat uneasily under the prolonged disquisition, anxiously waiting
for an opportunity to take his place in the picture. At length a
titillation seizing the olfactory nerve of Mr. Preston, he paused
to take a pinch of snuff, and Mr. Davis immediately filled up the
_vacuum_, taking up the line of speech in this wise:

"I have listened," said he, "with equal edification and pleasure
to the classic discourse of our friend, sparkling with gems alike
of intellect and fancy, but I differ from him _toto caelo_. He
may say what he will as to the supreme vigor and condensation of
thought and speech characteristic of classic Greece and Rome; but,
for my part, I think there is nothing equal to our own _vernacular_
in these particulars, and I am fortunately able, although from a
humble source, to give you a striking and conclusive example and
illustratio