The purpose of the legislative custom of “eulogizing” dead members of
congress is not apparent unless it is to add a terror to death and make
honorable and self-respecting members rather bear the ills they have
than escape through the gates of death to others that they profess to
know a good deal about. If a member of that kind, who has had the bad
luck to “go before,” could be consulted he would indubitably say that
he is sorry to be dead; and that is not a natural frame of mind in one
who is exempt from the necessity of himself “delivering a eulogy.”
It may be urged that the congressional “eulogy” expresses in a general
way the eulogist’s notion of what he would like to have somebody say
of himself when he is by death elected to the Lower House. If so, then
Heaven help him to a better taste; but meanwhile it is a patriotic
duty to prevent him from indulging at the public expense the taste
that he has. There have been a few men in congress who could speak
of the character and services of a departed member with truth and
even eloquence. Of many others, the most charitable thing that one
can conscientiously say is that one would a little rather hear a
“eulogy” by them than of them. Considering that there are many kinds
of brains and only one kind of no brains, their diversity of gifts is
remarkable, but one characteristic they have in common: they are all
poets. Their efforts in the way of eulogium illustrate and illuminate
Pascal’s obscure saying that poetry is a particular sadness. If not sad
themselves, they are at least the cause of sadness in others, for no
sooner do they take to their legs to remind us that life is fleeting,
and to make us glad that it is, than they burst into bloom as poets
all! Some one has said that in the contemplation of death there is
something that belittles. Perhaps that explains the transformation.
Anyhow the congressional eulogist takes to verse as naturally as a moth
to a candle, and with about the same result to his reputation for sense.
The poetry is commonly not his own; when it violates every law of
sense, fitness, metre, rhyme and taste it is. But nine times in ten it
is some dog’s-eared, shop-worn quotation from one of the “standard”
bards, usually Shakspeare. There are familiar passages from that poet
which have been so often heard in “the halls of legislation” that they
have acquired an infamy which unfits them for publication in a decent
family newspaper; and Shakspeare himself, reposing in Elysium on his
bed of asphodel, omits them when reading his complete works to the
shades of Kit Marlowe and Ben Jonson, for their sins.
This whole “business” ought to be “cut out.” It is not only a waste
of time and a trial to the patience of the country; it is immoral. It
is not true that a member of congress, who while living was a most
ordinary mortal, becomes by the accident of death a hero, a saint,
“an example to American youth.” Nobody believes these “eulogies,”
and nobody should be permitted to utter them in the time and place
designated for another purpose. A “tribute” that is exacted by custom
and has not the fire and light of spontaneity is without sincerity
or sense. A simple resolution of regret and respect is all that the
occasion requires and would not inhibit any further utterance that
friends and admirers of the deceased might be moved to make elsewhere.
If any bereaved gentlemen, feeling his heart getting into his head,
wishes to tickle his ear with his tongue by way of standardizing his
emotion let him rent a hall and do so. But he should not be permitted
to make the capitol a Place of Wailing and the _Congressional Record_ a
book of bathos.