Henry Watterson

New York had never witnessed, never divined anything in pathos and humor so exquisite.

They wanted something if possible as strong, but more refined, and in the person of the leading comedy man of Laura Keene’s company, a young actor by the name of Jefferson, they got it.

People were growing restive under ministrations which were at times little less than impositions upon their forbearance.

To look at him when he came upon the stage was to laugh; yet he commanded tears almost as readily as laughter.

He was a master of his craft as well as a leader in society and letters.

Burton stood and had stood for twenty-five years the recognized, the reigning king of comedy in America.

Joseph Jefferson came to his artistic spurs slowly but surely, being nearly thirty years of age when he got his chance, and therefore wholly equal to it and prepared for it.

Before his audience he must be master of himself, holding the situation and his art by the firmest grip.

He had his beliefs and stood by them; but he was never aggressive.

His humor though perennial was subdued; his wit keen and spontaneous, never acrid or wounding.

He was eleven years my senior; but after the desultory acquaintance of a man and a boy we came together under circumstances which obliterated the disparity of age and established between us a lasting bond of affection.

One sentence especially caught the newspaper risibilities of the time, and it was many a year before the phrase “between the sherry and the champagne” ceased to pursue me.

In point of fact I have an impression that, barring Jackson and Polk, most of those who have got there were loath to give it up.

He leaped at conclusions, and from his premise his conclusion was usually sound.

His mind was of that order which is prone to believe what it wants to believe.

With the cradle songs of America the name of Stephen Collins Foster “is immortal bound,” and I would no more dishonor his memory than that of Robert Burns or the author of The Star-Spangled Banner.

Here in the United States he has quickened the pulse beats of four generations.

Wherever he has gone he has reached the popular heart.

The breadth and poignancy of Foster’s melodies entitle them to the highest critical respect, as they have received worldwide appreciation from great musicians and plain music lovers.

That legend of the ‘poor, unknown German musician’ who composed in poverty and secrecy the deathless songs that have obsessed the world of music lovers, has been told of numberless young composers on their way to fame, but died out in the…

Now as to Foster’s drinking habits, however unfortunate they proved to him they did not affect the quality of his art as he bequeathed it to us.

In fact, I believe it was the mathematical devil in his brain that came to hold him within such bare and primitive forms of composition and so, to some extent, to delimit the wider development of his genius.

As a consequence the Republicans for a long time had everything their own way, and, save for the Taft-Roosevelt quarrel, might have held their power indefinitely.

If you entertain the idea that this is a false view of our relative positions, and that your eminence lifts you above both comradeship and counsels, I have nothing to say except to regret that, in underestimating your breadth of character…

President, and you can believe it or not, as you please; though you ought to know that I would write you nothing except in sincere conviction, nor speak to you, or of you, except in a candid and kindly spirit.