I am sending you
herewith my first love-song, and even into it has crept a cadence that
makes it a love-song of maturity rather than of youth. I do not know
that you will care to have it, but it will interest you as the first....
"Ever sincerely yours,
"Eugene Field."
During the last years of his life, Bok tried to interest Benjamin
Harrison, former President of the United States, in golf, since his
physician had ordered "moderate outdoor exercise." Bok offered to equip
him with the necessary clubs and balls. When he received the balls, the
ex-president wrote:
"Thanks. But does not a bottle of liniment go with each ball?"
When William Howard Taft became President of the United States, the
impression was given out that journalists would not be so welcome at the
White House as they had been during the administration of President
Roosevelt. Mr. Taft, writing to Bok about another matter, asked why he
had not called and talked it over while in Washington. Bok explained the
impression that was current; whereupon came the answer, swift and
definite!
"There are no personae non gratae at the White House. I long ago learned
the waste of time in maintaining such a class."
There was in circulation during Henry Ward Beecher's lifetime a story,
which is still revived every now and then, that on a hot Sunday morning
in early summer, he began his sermon in Plymouth Church by declaring
that "It is too damned hot to preach.
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