No company was ever invited to his
house, and it was by the rarest chance that he went to any
entertainment. Who his associates were in this new phase of his life, is
often a matter of conjecture. Revolutionary socialists mostly, practical
and unpractical--not of the harmless theoretical sort: but he never was
seen on the street in company with other men. Whoever they were, they
could not have been either cheerful or elevating society. The audiences
that went to hear him were composed of quite a different class of people
from those of the preceding era, and could not sustain him with the same
moral force as formerly. No wonder if his temper became sharp and his
mind melancholic; if the lines deepened in his face and the quick,
bright look of his eye changed to a fitful, suspicious and desperate
expression; if his splendid talent deteriorated too much into mannerism.
Although this was his own fault, we could not help feeling pity for him,
and the kind of regret with which we look on the fragments of a
beautiful statue. He was evidently carried away with the ambition of
becoming a world reformer.
There is a sentence in his speech on Lincoln's election which may cast
light on Wendell Phillips' socialistic views. He says, "Caesar crossed
the Rubicon borne in the arms of a people trodden into poverty and
chains by an oligarchy of slaveholders; but that oligarchy proved too
strong even for Caesar and his legions.
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