A few weeks later came the demand for the removal of Otto Kelsey, Superintendent of Insurance, who had retained as his subordinates that ancient régime under whom the scandals of the insurance world had been possible. Even friends warned Governor Hughes that such a step meant the possible, even probable, defeat of all his policies. Every reason based on expediency was quoted against so radical a step, antagonizing so many powerful politicians.

'But he is incompetent," retorted Hughes. A few days later he summoned Kelsey and personally examined him. Never has Albany seen so merciless and destructive a crossexamination. It lasted a little over an hour; when it was ended a whole State knew Kelsey to be incompetent.

"I was n't there to see the black cap adjusted, but I saw the drop fall," said one politician grimly, and no one present failed to recognize that there had been a judicial execution.

In the meantime a Legislature, and particularly a Senate, loyal to past traditions, hateful of all that Hughes represented, had declared war.

For

months it had refused to accept any part of the Governor's programme. When Kelsey's removal was asked it seized upon this issue and added open hostility to secret defiance and retained Kelsey. It was then that Governor Hughes took the field.

"In case of difficulty I shall appeal to the people directly," he had said in January. In April he began his "appeals." Like his campaign speeches, however, these addresses utterly lacked denunciation and passion; they were in fact legal briefs and as such were objects of ridicule among his enemies.

"I am attorney for the people," was Governor Hughes's calm retort. The period of defiance, moreover, was brief. Of a sudden the response of the people was heard in the land. At its first sound the politicians capitulated, the "Old Guard" abdicated and the Hughes programme was indorsed by a panic-stricken Republican

State Committee. Governor Hughes had set out to destroy the boss, he had ended by reinstating the voter. He had made war upon the bosses and they had understood, but so had the people.

Looking back over eight months of Governor Hughes's administration, from this vantage point, the complete continuity and unity is now apparent. It has been the logical consequence of the revelations of the Armstrong Committee. Moreover, it has come about logically. With patronage-made machines, with bosses and with the traditional methods, the Governor has had no traffic. His power of appointment, his right of veto have not been bargain-counter remnants at political sales. He has trafficked neither in appointment nor legislation.

The whole thing has been worked out with the exactness of a mathematical problem. In its demonstration there has been employed the care one might find at a clinic. It has been done without the slightest dramatic. appeal; it has lacked features of applied personality, but it has succeeded, succeeded amazingly. Moreover, with success has come no qualifying debt. In the moment of victory the Governor is more isolated than during the actual conflict. He had insisted upon a proper regulation of corporations, yet, when a careless Legislature, yielding to popular agitation, passed a two-cent-per-mile railroad rate bill, without previous examination of conditions and on insufficient evidence, Governor Hughes wrote a veto message that had national currency. To his protest against the disregard of the common law by corporations and politicians he now added his emphatic veto to the employment of Lynch law by the people.

Again, when newspapers sought to influence him to sign a measure they favored for personal reasons, he said, in vetoing it:

"I have shown the politicians they do not control me; now I purpose showing the newspapers they cannot shape my actions.'

In the face of his great achievements there is an obvious temptation to exaggerate the personality of Governor Hughes. Yet the limitations of the Governor are obvious and must command the attention of those who seek to urge his further promotion. At Albany he has made history, not friends or followers, His coldness has become a local proverb. He has dealt in abstract morality rather than concrete humanity. "Things are either right or wrong, he said in a recent address, and the very triteness of this comment reveals the fundamental viewpoint of the man. His devotion to public welfare has been tireless and unselfish, yet it has been marked by a rigidity that has had elements of brusqueness and harshness. His best friends have not hesitated to declare that he has not infrequently sacrificed them to some insignificant or imaginary consideration. Alone, moreover, among those who have achieved prominence

in public life in recent years, Governor Hughes stands without a close friend or follower, whose loyalty is based upon sentiment rather than selfish interest. Such is the unique feature of the Hughes personality.

"After our candidate has spoken, he will shake hands with you, and I think you will find that he really is human," said a Steuben County farmer in introducing the Governor to a rural audience during the last campaign. In the question that this novel explanation sought to answer lies a surprisingly exact glimpse of the man Hughes-a glimpse which suggests the comparison with the unbending and uncompromising Roundhead of another century rather than a contemporary candidate on the stump. Moreover, quite as completely and in much the same spirit as the Roundhead shattered the tradition of the "divine right of kings," Charles E. Hughes has annihilated the modern superstition of the "divine right of bosses."

some there are, no doubt - many in numbers, though I believe relatively a small class-who want money, who want to accumulate, who want it for its own sake.

But I think in the ordinary case young America wants an opportunity for expressing its individuality and of receiving some recognition of individual achievement; and the young man takes a line that seems to be open to him, and does the best he can with his talents-more desirous, really, of showing what he can do and getting credit for it, than of amassing a fortune.

While so much of our activity is along lines of business, where, with our great opportunities, special talent is liberally rewarded undoubtedly rich returns come to many, and undoubtedly with these rich returns many of the more honorable ambitions of early youth are forgotten and ideals become corrupt.

But there is one thing more important than anything else, and that is that within there should be a citadel which none can assail, a fortress that cannot be carried by assault, that is proof against any kind of attack; and that is the citadel of self-respect.

The secret is within, not in external conditions. A man has to live with himself, and he should see to it that he is always in good company. Whether his lot is prosperous, whether his talents are such as to win certain kinds of success, or whether he has opportunities which come to some and are denied to others, if that citadel remains impregnable, he is a man and a successful man, and he is a happy Without this he is somebody else's man.

I don't mean this in a narrow sense. We live in an interesting world. Let us take part in these interests. Let us be many-sided. Do not let us contract ourselves into some narrow, little sphere in which we happen to be placed, and refuse to come out and get into contact with the varied interests of the world.

It is a beautiful world, too-beautiful in nature, beautiful in the works. of the imagination, beautiful in the works of art, beautiful on every side. Let us enjoy it to the full. Let us not be restricted by arbitrary rules. Let us be restricted only by the highest dignity of the enlightened conscience, and by the determination to make the most of life. Not in any narrow sense: let us make our lives broadly useful.

But, after all, what does it profit a man if he gain the whole world and lose his own soul? Does a lawyer at the bar think of the fee, and is he willing to practise deceit and chicanery to make money? Does the employer think of the return that is coming to

him, and try to squeeze the last bit of work out of his men and get the greatest margin of profit for himself? Does the employee or the clerk or any one in a close advisory capacity make himself a tool and a slave ready to do the bidding of greed?

And we want faith. I have never yet heard a sermon on faith that seemed to me to approximate the demand of that subject. I don't know that it is a possibility for any man to rise to a true conception of the importance of faith. We want faith in ourselves. You know what a splendid glow a man has when, if he is trained to physical exertion, he enters into some physical contest to which he is adequate. What a splendid feeling follows the exercise of his faculties.

A great many of you know what a delight is mental work-hard, straining mental work. A great many of you know the great delight of serving some master of your thought. we must have faith in ourselves to achieve victory along any line-physical, intellectual or moral.

But

Let a man take pride in his achievements of virtue. Let him take satisfaction in his moral conquests. Let him have faith that he can do it, and that is half the battle.

And we want faith in our fellowmen. Do not let us look on life cynically. Do not let us hold ourselves aloof and look askance on the efforts of our brethren. Let us feel that we are working good in this world.

No, don't let us look askance at life and retire within ourselves and achieve a little personal success as though it meant anything. No matter how much money you have, or how much fame you have, or how much achievement you havenothing means anything unless you feel that you can take hold of a man's hand-any man's, if he is a manand have him know that you are a real good fellow.

And we want faith in God. We want faith in the reign of goodness. We want faith in the supremacy of the Power that makes for righteousness.

HE letters of Longfellow here printed for the first time were nearly all written to Mr. Samuel Ward, the poet's life-long friend; and as they cover a period beginning in 1836 and ending in 1843, they contain much interesting information about Longfellow's early experiences as an author. They have been carefully selected from some sixty letters to Mr. Ward and to Mr. Charles Sumner and it is worthy of notice that such selection has been a matter of considerable difficulty, because all this correspondence has the poet's peculiar charm, and nearly all is valuable for the light it throws on the days when Longfellow first taught modern languages at Harvard University. Every one of these letters is wonderfully neat in appearance, very clearly written, faultlessly spelled and punctuated, and as legible to-day as it was when first penned-rather remarkable when we learn that many a page was hastily dashed off during a few leisure moments.

The first were written in 1836, when Longfellow was spending a year abroad, in studies preparatory for his work as Smith Professor of Modern Languages at Harvard University, a position to which he had been appointed because of his success in the same department at Bowdoin, his own college.

He owed his recommendation to Professor George Ticknor, the first

Smith Professor, and hence the first man to give courses in modern languages at any American college. It has been said that Ticknor's resignation was due to the fact that some of the college authorities thought him inferior to Longfellow as a teacher; but, however that may have been, no hint on the subject is found in Ticknor's correspondence with his successor, and the friendliest relations existed between them. Indeed this year's study abroad had been undertaken by Longfellow at the suggestion of the older man, who consented to hold the professorship until Longfellow should return.

It will be remembered that as yet Longfellow had published little besides a few translations from the Spanish, an essay on the "Moral and Devotional Poetry of Spain," and the series of European sketches entitled "Outre Mer"; the last being essays based on his experiences during a previous three years' sojourn in Europe, written in a style pleasantly reminiscent of Irving's "Sketch Book." He was, besides, the author of several text-books and grammars, prepared for the use of his classes at Bowdoin College; but, although regarded as a man of much promise, he had not yet made any great stir in the literary world.

The year 1835-1836 he spent mainly in Germany, improving his knowledge of the language and literature of that country. In November, 1835, he suffered a terrible loss in the death of his beautiful young wife, and soon afterwards withdrew in

Yours of March 26 did not reach me until last evening; which is the reason that you have not a more speedy reply. I am indeed very sorry to hear of your serious misfortune; but you have left me a little in doubt how far I am to condole with you. What you say of "the amputation crisis is somewhat in the Jean Paul vein; and I have not yet made up my mind whether you have lost your leg or not. I trust, however, that you have been rescued from so great a misfortune as this would be. Could I for a moment imagine otherwise, I should not allow myself to speak so lightly on the subject. But as you are doubtless fast recovering-and I hope, ere this reaches you, quite recovered-you will perhaps be amused to see into what a perplexity you threw me by a JeanPaulism.

I hope you have at least good weather to cheer you in your confinement. If you were here, you would probably dieunless your heart carries an umbrellaor has an oil-cloth hatcase for its pericardium (there's one for you, Sir, to pay you for yours of the 26th March)-for it has been raining ever since you left us, winding up this morning with a furious snow-storm. At this present moment the sunshine is breaking through the mist. More in my next.

Yesterday between ten and eleven I had a distant street view of your friend the Baron of Schwatzingen. He was passing down the Haspelgasse-all clad in green from top to toe-and looked like a large cucumber. By his side crept a little man in black, without form, and void-representing a bug on the said cucumber. Whereupon I made this polymeter: "Well art thou long, and green, and fair to see— and like thy fellow cucumbers art nourished by the vine."

You will perceive that I have been reading the Flegeljahre since you left us. I am delighted with Richter's magnificent and gorgeous imagination, which makes his descriptions of nature like Claude Lorraine's sunset landscapes. What exqui

site beauty and lavish prodigality of figurative language! His wit does not please me so much; for though perhaps as spontaneous as his poetic imagery and expression-it is by no means so unrivalled. Strange that a man, whose soul was so overflowing with poetry, should wear a yellow nankeen frock-coat, and get maudlin on beer! His life of Quintus Fixlein has been translated into English. I doubt, however, whether his works would please the English public, in general. He is too gigantic and misty. Reading his writings is like climbing in merry company up a steep hill to see the sun rise;-half the time you are in mist and vapor-and the trees swim around you like shadowy spectres-and then arises the sweet and manifold fragrance of flowers-and the birds sing in the air-and a glorious burst of sunshine darts athwart the vapory landscape and you are revelling, like the lark, in the freshness of morning when some merry fellow at your elbow makes a bad pun-or offers you a piece of Bologna sausage. Is it not so?

My whisper about a fall from a carriage was unfortunately prophetic. I hope you will look upon some other things I said as possibly, and if so, fortunately prophetic. I refer to your getting married. It is a shame that a young man of your feelings should suffer them to run to waste. cuse my frankness. Laugh, if you will, at my simplicity-but by all that is pure and lovely and of good report-think of these things.

Ex

He

A letter from Ticknor has just been put into my hands, and has snapped short my good advice.-Listen:-hear what he says of you. "Has young Ward of N. Y. been in Heidelberg, and if so how long did he stay and what did he do there? was with us in Dresden about two months ago, and left us very anxious to hear good things of him because he is capable of doing so much!" There's a sugar-plum for you.

Half-past twelve o'clock. I see from my window a tremendous storm coming along the Manheim road. Mercy on us!

Farewell. I hope you will soon be able to write me in your own hand, to say that you are well. Excuse the nonsense of this letter, and for your sentiments of friendship and regard receive mine in