is our waste of time, our dissipation of the few days and hours
vouchsafed us. We are just so many cicadas drumming out the hours
and disappearing. We have abundance of wit, and a good deal of
humor of a superficial kind, but the penetrating vision of a
Socrates, a Voltaire, a Carlyle is denied the most of us, and we
take ourselves and our accustomed pursuits most seriously.

On our way back from the village we stopped at the birthplace of
Samuel Tilden,--an old-fashioned white frame house, situated in
the very fork of the roads, and surrounded by tall trees. Not far
away is the cemetery, where a stone sarcophagus contains the
remains of a man who was very able if not very great.

Probably not fifty people in the United States, aside from those
living in the neighborhood, know where Tilden was born. We did not
until we came abruptly upon the house and were told; probably not
a dozen could tell exactly where he is buried. Such is fame. And
yet this man, in the belief of most of his countrymen, was chosen
president, though never seated; he was governor of New York and a
vital force in the politics and public life of his times,--now
forgotten.

What a disappointment it must have been to come so near and yet
miss the presidency. Before 1880 came around, his own party had so
far forgotten him that he was scarcely mentioned for
renomination,--though Tilden decrepit was incomparably stronger
than Hancock "the superb." It was hard work enthusing over
"Hancock and Hooray" after "Tilden and Reform;" the latter cry had
substance, the former was just fustian.