women as a whole are not interested in it, and that the power of the ballot, so far as women are concerned, would be controlled "by the least desirable citizens." When these words fell from the President's lips the walls of the convention hall echoed a chorus of feminine hisses. It was no feeble demonstration of protest. The combined hisses sounded as if a valve on a steam-*engine had broken, according to one correspondent. President Taft stood unmoved during the demonstration of hostilities, for the hisses lasted only a moment, and then smiling as he spoke he answered the unfavorable greeting with this retort: "Now, my dear ladies, you must show yourself capable of suffrage by exercising that degree of restraint which is necessary in the conduct of government affairs, by not hissing." The women who had made the demonstration were duly rebuked. The suffrage cause was undoubtedly hurt by the demonstration, as the President, regardless of his personal views, is entitled to consideration and respectful attention.—Wisconsin Farmer.
(2763)
Retort Effecting a Change—See Eccentricity.
RETORT, PERSONAL
Victor Hugo did not love the brilliant son
of Alexander Dumas, and when the latter
was a boy the poet was very fond of snubbing
him. It is on record that one day
young Dumas asked Victor Hugo why he
did not allow his children to take walks and
have talks with him. "It is," answered the
poet, "because Mme. Hugo is alarmed about
your morals. She is afraid you will lead
away the boys; in short, you pass for having
violent passions." "Monsieur," said the
young Dumas, looking the poet in the eye,
"if one has no passions at twenty he is likely
to have vices at forty." A day or two afterward
the elder Dumas, meeting with Hugo,
said: "How do you like my son? Do you
not think he is witty?" "Yes," said Hugo,
"but he makes very bad use of his wit."—Philadelphia
Press.
(2764)
Retracing Steps—See Barriers.
RETREAT DISCOURAGED
The battle of the Cowpens, altho hardly
more than a skirmish when tried by modern
standards, was in its day, according to the
British historian Stedman, "a very principal
link in the chain of circumstances which led
to the independence of America." To draw
up an inferior force for a pitched battle
directly in front of a broad river has always
seemed to the military critics very
imprudent. But this very act showed the
daring and the foresight of Morgan. When
blamed he afterward answered: "I would
not have had a swamp in view of my militia
on any consideration; they would have made
for it, and nothing could have detained them
from it. . . . As to retreat, it was the very
thing I wished to cut off all hope of. I
would have thanked Tarleton had he surrounded
me with his cavalry." Braver and
shrewder words never were spoken by a
military commander.—Thomas W. Higginson.
(2765)
RETRIBUTION IN THE INDIVIDUAL
What is true of the mass is first true of the
atom; what is true of the ocean is first true
of the drop. It is easy to see the law of
retribution when it is exemplified in the
broad effects of national calamity, but not so
easy to apprehend its action in the individual
fortune. We stand in awe over the shattered
greatness and buried splendor of
Egypt, Babylon, Judea, Phoenicia, Greece;
but the ruin that sin works in the individual
destiny is just as certain, and infinitely more
awful. If we could once see a soul in ruins,
we should never speak again of Nineveh,
Memphis, Jerusalem, Tyre, Athens. "Deceive
not yourselves." (Text.)—W. L. Watkinson,
"The Transfigured Sackcloth."
(2766)
RETRIBUTION INEVITABLE
With great injustice and cruelty the
French drove out the Huguenots, but in expelling
these sons of faith, genius, industry,
virtue, the French fatally impoverished their
national life, and they are suffering to-day
from these missing elements which none may
restore. It is impossible for a people to increase
in material wealth and political consideration
while its true grandeur, its greatness
of soul, is gradually passing away.
Very strange and subtle are the causes of
the decay of nations, and little by little, quite
unconsciously, does a people lose the great
qualities which made it. Poets lose their
fire, artists their imagination, merchants their
enterprise, statesmen their sagacity, soldiers
their heroism, the people their self-control;
literature becomes commonplace, art lifeless,
great men dwindle into mediocrities, good
men perish from the land, and the glory of
a nation departs, leaving only a shell, a
