Mr. Wilson

“ Wilson hastily arranged his dress, and obeyed the summons.
"Is this Mr. Townsend's house?" inquired the stranger
"It is, sir."
"Is he living?"
"He is, sir."
"I am glad of it; I was afraid I should arrive too late," replied the physician.
"Wilson! Wilson!" cried the old man, who had groped his way to the head of the stairs. "Who is there? are robbers breaking in? bolt---bolt the door! and take my gun that's at the foot of the stairs. Don't stand in the wind with your candle.---There, it is blown out now. Light it quick! light it quick." ”

“ Mr. Wilson preserved the same calmness, which appeared almost like indifference. In 1912 he sat in the sitting room of his little cottage in Cleveland Lane in Princeton quietly reading from one of his favourite authors and occasionally joining in the conversation of Mrs. Wilson and a few neighbours who had dropped in. In a rear room there was a telegraphic ticker, an operator, and some newspaper boys who at intervals would take an especially interesting bulletin in to Mr. Wilson, who would glance at it casually, make some brief comment, and then return to his book. ”

“ Mr. Wilson's vision and courage through these nine months of illness have but served to make him the more determined that justice and right (as he appraises them) shall prevail throughout the world if every force of influence at his command can accomplish it.
These are the outstanding impressions that the correspondent brought from a three-hour visit of Tuesday last, to the best loved and most hated man in the world, and of half an hour's call on Wednesday. ”

“ Pray how old is Mr. Wilson?” Malcolm thought he was turned of fifty. “Surprising!” observed Mr. Serge; “what a colour, and what activity! There is nothing like the life of a farmer! I have given Mr. Wilson a hint to-day that I should like to purchase something in this neighbourhood. I should not cavil at any price, that would fix me upon you, my young friend, as an apprentice in the farming business. ”

“ "My country again! Mr. Wilson, you have a country; but what country have I, or any one like me, born of slave mothers? What laws are there for us? We don't make them,—we don't consent to them,—we have nothing to do with them; all they do for us is to crush us, and keep us down. Haven't I heard your Fourth-of-July speeches? Don't you tell us all, once a year, that governments derive their just power from the consent of the governed? Can't a fellow think, that hears such things? Can't he put this and that together, and see what it comes to?" ”

“ Wilson was born in 1828, at Armagh county, Ireland. At four years of age he came to America with his parents, who located at Canada West, where he learned the baker's trade. In 1849 he came to Osceola and followed lumbering eight years. He was married at Osceola to Leah Moody and located on his homestead in Lincoln in 1870. He has three sons. Mr. Wilson has been a useful citizen and has done his full share of pioneer work. ”

“ But now what? Why, now comes my master, takes me right away from my work, and my friends, and all I like, and grinds me down into the very dirt! And why? Because, he says, I forgot who I was; he says, to teach me that I am only a nigger! After all, and last of all, he comes between me and my wife, and says I shall give her up, and live with another woman. And all this your laws give him power to do, in spite of God or man. Mr. Wilson, look at it! ”

“ JOHN WILSON
1785-1854
de Quincey’s
Life and
writings.
“William Wordsworth it was who ... did me the favour of making me known to John Wilson.... A man in a sailor’s dress, [Pg 325] manifestly in robust health, fervidus juventa, and wearing upon his countenance a powerful expression of ardour and animated intelligence, mixed with much good nature. ‘Mr. Wilson of Elleray’—delivered as the formula of introduction, in the deep tones of Mr. Wordsworth—at once banished the momentary surprise I felt on finding a stranger where I had expected nobody, and substituted a surprise of another kind ”

“ In such case the mind gathers itself up, and is all eyes and ears.
But Mr. Wilson would sometimes read me a few verses of his own; and this was a delight such as I have rarely experienced. My reader may wonder that a full-grown man and a good scholar should condescend to treat a boy like me as so much of an equal; but sympathy is precious even from a child, and Mr. Wilson had no companions of his own standing. I believe he read more to Turkey than to me, however. ”

“ Wilson. He is a gentleman that don't need ask favors of anybody, and he's going to pick out his own horses. You tell him I said he was a good judge of a horse. I want you to tell him I scorn to offer you money for this here Molly horse of yours—I scorn to do so. Mr. Wilson will make more than two hundred dollars in a day or so, the way cotton is going up this week. I just throw in this forty dollars—here is the voucher for it—so as to show you I am your friend. Now, if you ever want any shopping done up here any time; Mrs. Wilson, just write to me and I'll do the best I can. ”

“ What, coming from us, were merely words, would, coming from him, constitute acts and a nation's destiny. He regarded himself as the "trustee of the people," who should not act until he was sure he was right and should then act with the decision and finality of fate itself.
Of another misapprehension, namely, that Mr. Wilson lacks human warmth, I shall let the book speak without much prefatory comment. I have done my work ill indeed if there does not emerge from the pages a human-hearted man, a man whose passion it was to serve mankind. ”

“ Wilson tells folks that he holds a whip over his back, and that he knows how to get the silver out of his grip."
"Has this man a family?" inquired Lucretia. "How comes he to be so much with Mr. Townsend?"
"There is but little known about him in these parts," replied Mrs. Dudley; "but a body needs only look in his eye to see that he is bad enough. Howsomever, there is One above us, who knows all things, and will manage them as seemeth good to him."
"Mr. Wilson came here t' other day, and told us that his daughter was coming from Quebec ”

“ In October, 1895, he received the degrees of the Royal Order of Scotland at Washington, D. C., and in October, 1899, was given the supreme and honorary thirty-third degree at Washington. In May, 1903, during the session of the Imperial Council in Topeka he was made a Knight of the Red Cross of Constantine.
For many years Mr. Wilson has likewise been prominent in Grand Army circles and is a member of Lincoln Post No. 1 of Topeka. His friends have long appreciated the fact that Mr. Wilson has accomplished a great deal in the world and much more than many men whose early advantages were greater. ”

“ As the Republican candidate in an effort to win the West was heaping maledictions upon Dr. E. Lester Jones, the head of the Geodetic Survey, a Wilson appointee, the President calmly moved on, ripping to pieces and tearing to shreds the poor front behind which the Republican managers were seeking to win the fight.
Mr. Hughes campaigned like a lawyer, Mr. Wilson like a statesman. Mr. Hughes was hunting small game with bird shot, Mr. Wilson trained heavy artillery on the enemies' central position. ”

“ No statesman probably ever had a more difficult problem presented to him than did Mr. Wilson upon the momentous 29th of April, 1919. At that moment three things seemed of extreme importance if anything was to be saved out of the wreckage of the world. The first was a speedy peace, so that men everywhere might return to the work of production and reconstruction and the avenues of trade everywhere be opened. Peace and work! The second was of supreme importance—keeping the great Allies firmly welded together to steady a world which was threatened with anarchy. ”

“ In execution, we all have a blind spot in some part of our eye. President Wilson's was in his inability to use men; and inability, mind you, not a refusal. On the contrary, when any one of us volunteered or insisted upon taking responsibility off his shoulders he was delighted. Throughout the Peace Conference, Mr. Wilson never played politics. ”

“ I think that through all the phases of the war the German Page 62 opinion of Mr. Wilson has suffered from sheer exaggeration. The chief mistake lay in separating Wilson's personality from public opinion in the United States. In spite of his strong will and his autocratic leanings, Mr. Wilson is still, in the first place, a perfect type of the American politician. In his speeches he always tries to voice public opinion, and in his policy to follow its wishes. ”

“ His decisions were fearless and prompt and he stood by them like a rock. In sending troops promptly and in sending plenty of them, in cooperating in the naval effort, in insisting on the unity of command under Foch, in backing the high command in the field, and in every other practical detail Mr. Wilson had big, clear conceptions and the courage to carry them out."
Those who were critical of the President's conduct of the war forget the ringing statement that came from Lloyd George when the great offensive was on, when he said: "The race is now between Von Hindenburg and Wilson." ”

“ Wilson was unwilling that she should tax her strength by close application. Life in the delightful home furnished interest enough to make resort to fiction unnecessary as an entertainment. In 1879 the death of Mr. Wilson ended the idyllic home life and she returned to her desk, writing "The Speckled Bird" and "Devota," with a pen that had lost much of its charm in the days of happy absorption. ”

“ Those to whom life is kinder than it was during many years to Mr. Wilson have naturally a zest for it. Robuster natures than his even though life averts her face, often preserve a zest for it. Conscious of his powers he seems to have fortified himself against failure with scorn. ”

“ Wilson waited for no more. Clutching at the baby with one hand—a fine young gentleman now of near twelve months old, promising fair to be as great a source of trouble to Wilson and the nursery as was his brother Archibald, whom he greatly resembled—and at Archie with the other, out she flew to the corridor screeching “Fire! fire! fire!” never ceasing, down tore Wilson with the four children, and burst unceremoniously into the sleeping apartment of Mr. and Mrs. Carlyle. ”

“ Millar that it was worthy of so eminent a bookseller as he to make a complete elegant set of the classics, which might set up his name equal to the Alduses, Stevenses, or Elzevirs, and that Mr. Wilson was the properest person in the world to assist him in such a project. He confessed to me that he had sometimes thought of it, but that his great difficulty was to find a man of letters that could correct the press. I mentioned the matter to Wilson, who said he had a man of letters in his eye one Lyon, a nonjuring clergyman of Glasgow. ”

“ Wilson.
"Because I'm a freeman!" said George, proudly. "Yes, sir; I've said Mas'r for the last time to any man. I'm free!"
"Take care! You are not sure,—you may be taken."
"All men are free and equal in the grave, if it comes to that, Mr. Wilson," said George.
"I'm perfectly dumb-founded with your boldness!" said Mr. Wilson,—"to come right here to the nearest tavern!"
"Mr. Wilson, it is so bold, and this tavern is so near, that they will never think of it; they will look for me on ahead, and you yourself wouldn't know me. Jim's master don't live in this county ”

“ Wilson arrived at the railway depôt on his return from a game of golf with his secretary, Mr. Tumulty, as I was loitering at the bookstall. I had never seen either of them before, but intuitively recognised them in a flash. Mr. Tumulty looked exactly as a man with so momentous a name could only look. The President was garbed in a neutral-tinted lounge-suit and wore a dark fawn overcoat and dove-coloured spats. ”

“ There is a modesty in his character that keeps him back. He is about 36 years old.
Mr. Wilson ranks among the foremost in legal and political knowledge. He has joined to a fine genius all that can set him off and show him to advantage. He is well acquainted with Man, and understands all the passions that influence him. Government seems to have been his peculiar Study, all the political institutions of the World he knows in detail, and can trace the causes and effects of every revolution from the earliest stages of the Greecian commonwealth down to the present time. ”

“ Mr. Wilson now found me grow very uneasy, as, indeed I had been from the beginning, nor could any thing but respect to the company have prevented me from correcting the boy long before: he, therefore, endeavoured to turn the discourse, and asked our spark when he left London? To which he answered, the Wednesday before. 'How, Sir,' said I, 'travel on Christmas-day?' 'Was it so,' says he, 'fags! that's more than I knew; but why not travel on Christmas-day as well as any other?' 'Why not?' said I, lifting my voice ”

“ Amidst his severest adversities he frequently sent remittances to his mother, in Scotland, his father having died and left her poor. To the day of her death he manifested an earnest and commendable solicitude for her comfort, and used every means within his power to alleviate her wants and smooth her downward path to the tomb.
With the commencement of British oppression the political career of Mr. Wilson began. He freely spoke and ably wrote in favour of equal rights and liberal principles. He was an early, zealous, and able advocate of the American cause. ”

“ Grayson has proven so satisfactory that the President's physician is confident the attendant discomfort will soon be conquered.
One has only to look at the President at short range to realize that Mr. Wilson has been a very sick man. But his appearance does not suggest any one of the organic afflictions that might be expected to result in complete physical incapacity. He is restrained from excessive exertion while corrective measures are repairing the damage resulting from his disregard of the rules of nature. ”