URN]

I told him the story of the pessimist whom nothing ever pleased, and
the optimist whom nothing ever displeased, being congratulated by the
angels upon their having obtained entrance to heaven. The pessimist
replied:

"Yes, very good place, but somehow or other this halo don't fit my
head exactly."

The optimist retorted by telling the story of a man being carried down
to purgatory and the Devil laying his victim up against a bank while
he got a drink at a spring--temperature very high. An old friend
accosted him:

"Well, Jim, how's this? No remedy possible; you're a gone coon sure."

The reply came: "Hush, it might be worse."

"How's that, when you are being carried down to the bottomless pit?"

"Hush"--pointing to his Satanic Majesty--"he might take a notion to
make me carry him."

Morley, like myself, was very fond of music and reveled in the morning
hour during which the organ was being played at Skibo. He was
attracted by the oratorios as also Arthur Balfour. I remember they got
tickets together for an oratorio at the Crystal Palace. Both are sane
but philosophic, and not very far apart as philosophers, I understand;
but some recent productions of Balfour send him far afield
speculatively--a field which Morley never attempts. He keeps his foot
on the firm ground and only treads where the way is cleared. No
danger of his being "lost in the woods" while searching for the path.

Morley's most astonishing announcement of recent days was in his
address to the editors of the world, assembled in London. He informed
them in effect that a few lines from Burns had done more to form and
maintain the present improved political and social conditions of the
people than all the millions of editorials ever written. This followed
a remark that there were now and then a few written or spoken words
which were in themselves events; they accomplished what they
described. Tom Paine's "Rights of Man" was mentioned as such.

Upon his arrival at Skibo after this address we talked it over. I
referred to his tribute to Burns and his six lines, and he replied
that he didn't need to tell me what lines these were.

"No," I said, "I know them by heart."

In a subsequent address, unveiling a statue of Burns in the park at
Montrose, I repeated the lines I supposed he referred to, and he
approved them. He and I, strange to say, had received the Freedom of
Montrose together years before, so we are fellow-freemen.

At last I ind