382 SUNDRY JOURNEYS AND EXPERIENCES-I 



forth in one of the smaller towns of Massachusetts. The 

 chairman of the lecture committee, being seated beside 

 him on the platform, and wishing to entertain him with 

 edifying conversation while the audience was coming in 

 remarked that they had had rather a trying experience 

 during the lecture of the week before. On Taylor s ask 

 ing what it was, the chairman answered: &quot;The lecturer 

 was seized by a virago on the stage. &quot; He meant vertigo. 

 Dana told good stories of old Dr. Osgood of Medford, 

 whose hatred of Democracy was shown not only in his 

 well-known reading of Governor Gerry s proclamation, 

 but in his bitter sermon at the election of Thomas Jef 

 ferson. At this some one gave a story regarding our 

 contemporary Dr. Osgood, the eminent Unitarian clergy 

 man, who, toward the end of his life, had gone into the 

 Protestant Episcopal Church. I had known him as a 

 man of much ability and power, but with a rather ex 

 traordinary way of asserting himself and patronizing 

 people. He had recently died, and a legend had arisen 

 that, on his arrival in the New Jerusalem, being pre 

 sented to St. Paul, he said: &quot;Sir, I have derived both 

 profit and pleasure from your writings, and have com 

 mended them to my congregation. 



Our host, Fields, was especially delightful. He gave 

 reminiscences of his stay with Tennyson on the Isle of 

 &quot;Wight among others, of taking a walk with him one dark 

 evening when, suddenly, the great poet fell on his knees, 

 and seeming to burrow in the grass called out gutturally 

 and gruffly : Man, get down on your marrow-bones ; here 

 are violets.&quot; Fields also gave reminiscences of Charles 

 Sumner, showing the great senator s utter lack of any 

 sense of humor, and among them a story of his summoning 

 his office-boy to his presence on the eve of the Fourth of 

 July and addressing him on this wise: &quot;Patrick, to-mor 

 row is the natal day of our Republic ; it is a day for public 

 rejoicing, a time of patriotic festivity. You need not 

 come to the office; go out and rejoice with our fellow- 

 citizens that your lot is cast in so happy a country. 



