all the rules of senatorial courtesy in those machine days, a
member of the Cabinet from New York should have been a friend of
its United States senator. Mr. Evarts was too big a man to be
counted in any other class or category except his own. Of course,
all these criticisms were carried to both the president and the
secretary of state. The president never mentioned them, and I never
heard Evarts, though I met him frequently, make any reply but once.

Dining with Mr. Evarts, who entertained charmingly, a very
distinguished English jurist among the guests, here on a special
mission, said: "Mr. Secretary, I was at the Senate to-day and
heard Senator Conkling speaking. His magnificent personal
appearance, added to his fine oratory, must make him one of the
most formidable advocates at your bar and in your courts." The
English judge thought, of course, that Mr. Evarts, as the leader
of the American Bar and always in the courts, would know every
lawyer of distinction. Mr. Evarts dryly replied: "I never saw
Mr. Conkling in court."

It is always dangerous to comment or narrate a racy story which
involves the personal affliction of anybody. Dining with Mr. Evarts
one night was also a very distinguished general of our Civil War,
who had been an important figure in national politics. He was very
curious to know about Mr. Tilden, and especially as to the truth
of a report that Mr. Tilden had a stroke of paralysis, and appealed
to me, as I was just from New York. I narrated a story which was
current at the time that Mr. Tilden had denied the report by saying
to a friend: "They say I cannot lift my left hand to my head." He
then put his right hand under the left elbow and shot the left one
easily up to his face and said: "See there, my left has reached