mentions him he can mention himself, and whenever some one else does mention him there are many who ascribe to his originality the credit for the suggestion.
It seems difficult for our people to understand any man who really does not desire public office in a land where it has so long been regarded purely as a privilege to be bestowed or a prize to be contested. I suppose that even the blunt and grim old warrior Sherman caused the people to smile when he said that if nominated for the presidency he would not accept and if elected he would not serve. They wondered what he meant, and for a time it never occurred to them that he meant just what he said.
But the day came at last when I must decide, and to a committee of the Independents I said that I should give them an answer in the morning. I thought it all over again in the watches of the night,—and the unfinished manuscript on my library table—and at last, since somebody had to do it, since somebody had to point out at least the danger of risking the community rights in the hands of a political machine, I said I would accept. I suppose that it is but an expression of that ironic mood in which the Fates delight to deal with mortals that it should be so easy to get that which one does not want; the Independents insisted on my standing for the office, but the only humor in that fact was just then too grim for pleasure, though there is always a compensation somewhere after all, and gloomy as I was that morning at the prospect of the bitter campaign and the difficulties that would follow if I were
