Equality in the common school is the preparation for equality at the ballot-box.

In asserting your rights, you will not fail to insist upon justice to all, under which is necessarily included purity in the Government.

Thieves and money-changers, whether Democrats or Republicans, must be driven out of our Temple.

Let them, while uniting against corruption, insist upon Equal Rights for All,--also the suppression of lawless violence, whether in the Ku-Klux-Klan outraging the South, or illicit undertakings outraging the Black Republic of Hayti.

I missed a recommendation in conformity with the best precedents of our history, and with the opinions of illustrious men, that the Constitution be amended so as to confine the President to one term.

No person who has once held the office of President of the United States shall be thereafter eligible to that office.

And yet, looking at an engraving, like looking at a book, may be the beginning of a new pleasure and a new study.

Thinking of those kindly portfolios, I make this record of gratitude, as to benefactors.

Perhaps some other invalid, seeking occupation without burden, may find in them the solace that I did.

But here, as in other things, genius exercises its accustomed sway without limitation.

Even the difficulties of “a defective model” did not prevent Raphael, Titian, Rembrandt, Rubens, Velasquez, or Van Dyck from producing portraits precious in the history of Art.

It would be easy to mention heads by Raphael yielding in value to only two or three of his larger masterpieces, like the Dresden Madonna.

Charles the Fifth stooped to pick up the pencil of Titian, saying, “It becomes Cæsar to serve Titian!” True enough; but this unprecedented compliment from the imperial successor of Charlemagne attests the glory of the portrait-painter.

The female figures of Titian, so much admired under the names of Flora, La Bella, his Daughter, his Mistress, and even his Venus were portraits from life.

Rembrandt turned from his great triumphs in his own peculiar school to portraits of unwonted power; so also did Rubens, showing that in this department his universality of conquest was not arrested.

Unquestionably the finest assemblage of portraits anywhere is that of the artists occupying two halls in the Uffizi Gallery at Florence, being autographs contributed by the masters themselves.

Here are the lions, painted by themselves,--except, perhaps, the foremost of all, Michel Angelo, whose portrait seems the work of another.

His prints are numerous, and many are regarded with favor; but in the long list not one is so sure of that longevity allotted to Art as his portrait of Titian, which bears date 1587, eleven years after the death of the latter.

It is broad, bold, strong, and instinct with life.

Though only paper with black lines, it is, by the genius of the artist, as good as a picture.

His prints show mastery of the art, making something like an epoch in its history.

Among French masters Antoine Masson is conspicuous for brilliant hardihood of style, which, though failing in taste, is powerful in effect.

His original genius was refined by classical studies and quickened by diligence.

It is bold, perhaps, thus to exalt a single portrait, giving to it the palm of Venus; nor do I know that it is entirely proper to classify portraits according to beauty.

In disputing about beauty, we are too often lost in the variety of individual tastes; and yet each person knows when he is touched.