Robert Orange

“ Hartley Penborough and the members of the Capitol Club were wondering what line they ought to take. They intended to stand by Robert, but they did not wish to advertise their loyalty. The Carlton set were divided into two camps—those who thought Orange unlucky, and those who thought him an alien adventurer. So far as these opinions touched his career, both were damaging. The friends of Lord Wight and Lady Fitz Rewes had always been jealous of the young man. ”

“ Sara's sympathy and the reasonable hopes necessarily attached to so much kindness had sustained him through the bitterness of all his trials.
“Have you ever thought,” said Reckage, with pretended carelessness, “that Orange's serenity just now is somewhat unnatural? Is it all religion?”
“I believe that neither of us can form any conception of his capacity for suffering, or the support he finds in his Belief.”
“It points to fanaticism, no doubt. He is a Cardinal in petto. The Catholics want spirit everywhere, and Orange has got spirit. His vocation lies toward the Vatican. ”

“ My dear F.,—You ask me for an estimate of Monsignor Orange. Questions are always easy. Let me offer you facts in return. The Castrillon duel was a nine days' wonder—much discussed and soon forgotten. Castrillon left a letter with his second, M. de Lamoignon, to the effect that he had offered Orange “intolerable insults” which “no man of honour” could have suffered. Mrs. Parflete's name did not transpire, but Prince d'Alchingen and others gave speculation no industry on the matter. ”

“ There is no man at the bar of Orange County, or indeed anywhere, for whom the term colorless would be so inept as it would be for Judge Albert H. F. Seeger. He radiates color. He is the incarnation of sunshine. He is the forerunner of gladness, sounding a proclamation of hope and good cheer wherever he goes. No one would suppose that he ever had a care or sorrow. Yet he must have had his share. He performs more perfectly than any man I ever knew that mission which Robert Louis Stevenson glorifies when he says:
"There is no duty we so much underrate as the duty of being happy. ”

“ Lord Reckage was announced.
“Beauclerk!” she exclaimed.
His lordship, self-absorbed, did not perceive her confusion—which she was too young to dissemble perfectly.
“The man told me that you were here,” he said, addressing Orange and seating himself by Sara. “I call this luck—finding you both together. I have just been with my Committee. They always expect [218] the worst of me now, and they are always cheerful in the expectation.”
Sara began to disentangle some silk fringe on her skirt; she did not look up, and she offered no comment.
“What is the matter now?” asked Robert. ”

“ All men did not love after this fashion, he knew, but humanity was full of surprises, and he had been too calm a student of other men's lives to feel astonishment at any fresh revelation either of their pain, their perversity, or their humours. He had felt so sure, however, that Robert would, in the end, get the better of that unhappy attachment; everything in the process of time had to surrender to reason, and it was not possible, he thought, that a strong, self-reliant man could long remain subdued by a mere infatuation. ”

“ It was impossible for one brought up in this view to feel that duelling—under certain provocation and fair conditions—was wrong. The custom was frequently abused, no doubt, yet the same could be said of all customs, and Orange, rightly or wrongly, held a conviction on the subject which no argument could affect. But, with a lover's unreasonableness, he had found the fight between Bodava and Castrillon an insult to the lady at stake. He suspected, too, that Castrillon had spoken lightly of her to General Prim, to Zeuill, perhaps to d'Alchingen. ”

“ As he sat down at the table and observed the sweep of her eyelashes toward Reckage, a presentiment of trouble clouded the new hopes he had formed for her career.
“Who are your strong men now?” asked Harding suddenly, after a moment's contemplation of Reckage, who sat opposite.
“Our strong men?” faltered Lord Garrow.
“Aren't most of 'em place-hunters and self-seekers?”
“You must meet Robert Orange,” said Pensée; “Mr. ”

“ Ormsbee farm on the State road midway between Newburgh and the village of Montgomery, was born in New York City, and engaged in business there for many years. He married Miss Maggie Urey and they have two sons, James B., Jr., born January, 1905, and John Robert, born March, 1908. Mr. Love and his family, like many retired New Yorkers, enjoy the freedom of rural life in Orange County. ”

“ When, however, he has dosed, reduced, tortured, and killed every vital instinct in his nature till he is an empty shape and nothing more, he must not flatter himself that he has accomplished a great work. Life is not for the dead, but for the living, and in crucifying our flesh we have to be quite certain that we are playing no ghost's farce, inflicting [160] airy penalties on some handfuls of harsh dust. Robert could not feel that absorbing interest in himself which enables so many to cut themselves adrift, painfully, no doubt, from every creature and all impersonal anxieties. ”

“ The weak, under such discipline, become sugary: the strong grow hard. Robert has backbone; he is a man of ability, perhaps even genius, but there is always a danger that, either from the accumulation of scruples or the want of romantic incentive, he may throw up the political game and bury himself in a monastery where his dreams may find their sole expression in prayer. ”

“ The nuptial mass had been fixed for eight o'clock, the wedding party were to breakfast at Almouth House afterwards, then the bride and groom were to leave by the mail for Southampton en route for Miraflores in Northern France. The two young men drove together to the chapel attached to the Alberian Embassy. Not a word passed between them, but Reckage, under his eyelids, examined every detail of his friend's attire. He wondered at its satisfactoriness on the whole, inasmuch as Orange had not seen fit to consult him on the point. The church was small and grey and sombre ”

“ But neither prince nor princess had many scruples, political or moral. And looking to what happened afterwards to the whole family, and how near at hand was the time when the Prince of Orange was to drive his aforesaid father-in-law before him out of his own kingdom, the reception given to Monmouth, and the favours lavished on Lady Henrietta, cannot excite much astonishment. ”

“ Distinguished persons, staying at Kemmerstone for the first time, [195] would ask a fellow-guest, “Who is the melancholy youth who looks so ill?” “That,” they would be told, “is Douglas Hendlesham, I think.”
Disraeli called him “a personified hallucination.”
The party, on this particular occasion, consisted of Agnes Carillon (who attracted unusual attention as the fiancée of Lord Reckage) , the Bishop of Hadley (her father) , the Duke and Duchess of Pevensey, Charles Aumerle, and Mr. Disraeli. Lord Garrow lost no time in conveying his version of the Orange scandal to the ex-Minister's ears. ”

“ In thinking over the character of Orange, the fact that strikes one most is that his character deepened and strengthened as he grew older and in proportion to his sufferings. If he had not been tried to the very limit by misfortunes, and if he had always been rich and prosperous, the finest things in his character might have remained untried and unknown to us. ”

“ The marriage met with great opposition from the Catholics, and this seemed to make Orange only more determined. There was nothing to recommend Anne except her wealth and lands. She was lame and had no charm, and became later an odious and impossible woman who made her husband very unhappy.
King Philip meanwhile continued to shower honors upon Orange. He made him a Councilor of State and Stadtholder or Governor of Holland, Zeeland, and Utrecht, and head of the troops in those provinces. If Orange had been content to do as he was told, his prosperous, pleasant life might have continued. ”

“ The better days are now and the good times have come at last. The new generation of lawyers now entering upon their active career has reason for gratification that the facilities for the orderly, deliberate, tranquil trial and hearing of their causes, with the prospect that even and exact justice will be rendered in them, are greater to-day than at any previous period in the history of the county. There never was so good an opportunity for a young, ambitious, able advocate to win fame at the bar of Orange County as there is to-day. ”

“ In politics he is a republican, though not an office-seeker or holder. In sentiment he is anti-war, liberal, progressive and broad-minded.
By a former marriage he has two sons, Henry J., of Chicago, and Charles H., of Barber County, Kansas.
RALPH WISNER belongs to one of the oldest families in the town of Warwick. The first settler in this part of Orange County was Johannes Weasner, and family, who settled on a tract of land near Mount Eve. There his dust lies mingled with that of several generations of his descendants. ”

“ The four precincts named were the political divisions of the county until after the Revolution. In 1788 the towns of Warwick and Minisink were erected from Goshen, and in 1791 the towns of Clarkstown and Ramapo were erected from Haverstraw. In 1797 the name of the town of New Cornwall was changed to Cornwall.
In the southern towns of the County of Ulster, afterward transferred to Orange, changes were made in 1709. The precincts of Highlands and Shawangunk were attached to New Paltz, and the present Orange County towns of Montgomery, Crawford and Wallkill were then embraced within its limits. ”

“ Soon after 1853 he received an appointment to a clerkship in the State Department at Washington, which continued until his death at Washington, July 21, 1854. His first wife was Elizabeth, daughter of John Jamieson, of Newburgh. His second wife was Margaret, daughter of John Whited.
It is practically at this point that we come to the parting of the ways—the passing of the real pioneers in Orange County journalism. The generation has come and gone, so far as activity is concerned, and we find coming on the stage new actors. ”

“ He is a member of the Sugar Loaf Methodist Church and politically is a democrat. September 23, 1878, he married Mary Fitzgerald of Warwick, and they have three children: Nellie E., born April 11, 1880, wife of Henry Ames, of Stamford, N. Y.; Edith S., born March 10, 1883, wife of Fletcher A. Herrod, of Miami, Florida, and Floyd William Dudley, born September 2, 1884, living in Maxwell, Neb. The grandmother of Mrs. Rose was Mary Booth, a granddaughter of Sarah Wells, reputed to be the first white woman who came to Orange County.
JOSEPH H. ROSE, retired brick manufacturer, Newburgh N. Y. ”

“ Mary J., married Elijah Carpenter Thayer; John G., unmarried; William H. H., married Agnes Horton.
Hamilton Morrison passed his entire life on this farm in the town of Montgomery. When a young man he taught school and after marriage gave his attention to cultivating his broad acres.
He was very successful in his undertakings. He was foremost in founding the Orange County Agricultural Society, of which he was president for many years. He died October 25, 1881.
The family is progressive and one of the most influential in the county. In politics it is democratic, as was also their father. ”

“ Mr. Roe's parents were Alfred Booth and Martha (Durland) Roe. The homestead farm has been in the possession of the family for about one hundred and seventy-five years. Mr. and Mrs. Roe are members of the First Presbyterian Church of Chester.
D. HOWELL ROE, of Florida, Orange County, was born October 25, 1838. After he finished his district school education, at the age of eighteen, he became clerk in William Vail's grocery store and worked there several years, when he engaged in the livery business at Chester, near the Erie Railroad station. ”

“ In politics he is a Republican and takes an active interest in local affairs.
GEORGE A. OWEN, dealer in general merchandise at Washingtonville, N. Y., was born in that village in 1842, a son of Hon. Albert G. and Phoebe M. (Breed) Owen. His father was also a merchant here, and actively identified with public affairs in Orange County. He was one of a committee of three to organize the famous 124th Regiment. He served several terms as supervisor of the town of Blooming Grove, and was elected a member of the state assembly in 1849-1850. ”

“ It is not strange that one who was born to the heritage of such a name should have sought to add, as indeed he has added, to its luster in a succeeding generation.
It was while Charles F. Brown was district attorney of Orange County that John W. Lyon became an official of the county through his appointment to the office of assistant district attorney. The career of the Lyons, father and son, now covers a practice of sixty-one years in Port Jervis, the longest period of continuous practice at the bar carried over from father to son, in Orange County. ”

“ It is served by the Morris & Essex Division of the Delaware, Lackawanna & Western railroad and by the Orange branch (of which it is a terminus) of the Erie railroad, and is connected with Newark, South Orange and Bloomfield by electric lines. The city lies at the base of the eastern slope of the first Watchung, or Orange, Mountain, and is primarily a residential suburb of New York and Newark; with East Orange, West Orange and South Orange it constitutes virtually a single community, popularly known as “the Oranges.” ”

“ A work professing to be history, seeking to readjust the balances in which the superficial judgment of contemporaries is corrected by the tardy recognition of posterity, should not fail to register the star of James G. Graham in that brilliant constellation from which Marsh and Winfield, Gedney and Fullerton, Brewster and Scott shed undying refulgence upon the traditions and memories of the Orange County bar. Let a garland of affectionate, reverent homage entwine the memory of one who never failed himself to lay a chaplet of rosemary upon the grave of friendship. ”