"Mr. Talfourd is now a Justice, and we find in the London journals an
account of a visit to his residence by a deputation from his native
town, to present to him a silver candelabrum, subscribed for by a
large number of the inhabitants of the borough, of all parties. The
base of the candelabrum is a tripod, on which stands a group of three
female figures; representing Law, Justice, and Poetry, the two former
modeled from Flaxman's sculpture on Lord Mansfield's monument in
Westminster Abbey, the latter from a drawing of the Greek Antique,
bearing a scroll inscribed with the word "Ion" in Greek characters.
The arms of Mr. Talfourd and of the borough of Reading are engraved on
the base. The testimonial was presented to the Justice in the presence
of his family, including the venerable Mrs. Talfourd, his mother,
and a large circle of private friends. In answer to the gentleman who
presented the testimonial, Mr. Talfourd replied:
"If I felt that the circumstances of this hour, and the eloquent
kindness which has enriched it, appealed for a response only to
personal qualities, I should be too conscious of the poverty of such
materials for an answer to attempt one; but the associations they
suggest expand into wider circles than self impels, and while they
teach me that this occasion is not for the indulgence of vanity,
but for the cultivation of humble thankfulness, they impart a nobler
significance to your splendid gift and to your delightful praise. They
remind me that my intellectual being has, from its first development,
been nurtured by the partiality of those whom, living and dead, you
virtually represent to-day; they concentrate the wide-spread instances
of that peculiar felicity in my lot whereby I have been privileged to
find aid, comfort, inspiration, and allowance in that local community
amidst which my life began; and they invite me, from that position
which once bounded my furthest horizon of personal hope, to live along
the line of past existence; to recognize the same influence everywhere
pervading it: and to perceive how its struggles have been assisted;
its errors softened down or vailed, and its successes enhanced, by the
constant presence of home-born regards. Embracing in a rapid glance
the events of many years, I call to mind how at an early age--earlier
than is generally safe or happy for youths--the incidents of life,
supplying an unusual stimulus to ordinary powers, gave vividness to
those dreams of human excellence and progress which, at some time,
visit all; how by the weakness which precluded them from assuming
those independent shapes which require the plastic force of higher
powers, they became associated with the scenes among which they were
cherished, and clove to them with earnest grasp; and how the fervid
expressions which that combination prompted, were accepted by generous
friends as indicating faculties 'beyond the reaches of my soul,'
and induced them to encourage me by genial prophecies which, with
unwearied purpose, they endeavored to fulfill. I renew that golden
season when such vague aspirations were at once cherished and
directed by the Christian wisdom of the venerated master of Reading
School--who, during his fifty years of authority, made the name of
our town a household word to successive generations of scholars,
who honored him in all parts of the world, and all departments of
society--whose long life was one embodied charity--and who gave
steadiness and object to those impulses in me which else might have
ended, as they began, in dreams. I remember, when pausing on the
slippery threshold of active life, and looking abroad on the desolate
future, how the earnestness of my friends gave me courage, and
emboldened me, with no patrons but themselves, to enter the profession
of my choice by its most dim and laborious avenue, and to brace myself
for four years of arduous pupilage; how they crowded with pleasures
the intervals of holiday I annually enjoyed among them during that
period, and another of equal length passed in a special pleader's
anxieties and toils; how they greeted with praise, sweeter than
the applause of multitudes to him who wins it, the slender literary
effusions by which I supplied the deficiency of professional income;
and how, when I dared the hazard of the bar, they provided for me
opportunities such as riper scholars and other advocates wait long
for, by confiding important matters to my untried hands; how they
encircled my first tremulous efforts by an atmosphere of affectionate
interest, roused my faint heart to exertion, absorbed the fever that
hung upon its beatings, and strengthened my first perceptions of
capacity to make my thoughts and impressions intelligible, on the
instant, to the minds of courts and juries. The impulse thus given to
my professional success at Reading, and in the sessions of Berkshire
during twelve years, gradually extended its influence through my
circuit, until it raised me to a position among its members beyond
my deserts and equal to my wishes. Another opening of fortune
soon dawned on me; in the maturity of life I aspired to a seat
in parliament--rather let me say, to _that_ seat which only I
coveted--and then, almost without solicitation, from many surviving
patrons of my childhood, and from the sons of others who inherited the
kindness of their fathers, I received an honor more precious to me as
the token of concentrated regards than as the means of advancement;
yet greatly heightened in practical importance by the testimony
it implied from the best of all witnesses. That honor, three times
renewed, was attended by passages of excitement which look dizzy even
in the distance--with much on my part requiring allowance, and much
allowance rendered by those to whom my utmost services were due; with
the painful consciousness of wide difference of opinion between some
of my oldest friends and myself, and with painful contests which those
differences rendered inevitable, yet cheered by attachments which
the vivid lights struck out in the conflict of contending passions
exhibited in scatheless strength, until I received that appointment
which dissolved the parliamentary connection, and with it annihilated
all the opposition of feeling which had sometimes saddened it, and
invested the close of my life with the old regard, as unclouded by
controversy as when it illumined its opening. And now the expressions
of your sympathy await me, when, by the gracious providence of God,
I have been permitted to enter on a course of less fervid action, of
serener thought, of plainer duty. For me political animosities are
forever hushed and absorbed in one desire, which I share with you
all, for the happiness and honor of our country, and the peaceful
advancement of our species; and all the feverish excitements and
perils of advocacy, its ardent partisanship with various interests,
anxieties, and passions, are displaced by the office of seeking to
discover truth and to maintain justice. I am no longer incited to
aspire to public favor, even under your auspices: my course is marked
right onward--to be steadily trodden, whether its duties may accord
with the prevalent feeling of the hour, or may oppose the temporary
injustice of its generous errors: but it is not forbidden me to prize
the esteem of those who have known me longest and best, and to indulge
the hope that I may retain it to the last. To encourage me in the
aim still to deserve that esteem, I shall look on this gift of those
numbers of my townsmen whose regards have just found such cordial
expression. I shall cherish it as a memorial of earliest hopes
that gleam out from the depth of years; as a memorial of a thousand
incentives to virtuous endeavor, of sacred trusts, of delighted
solaces; as a memorial of affections which have invested a being,
frail, sensitive, and weak, with strength not its own, and under God,
have insured for it an honorable destiny; as a memorial of this hour,
when, in the presence of those who are nearest and dearest to me on
earth, my course has been pictured in the light of those friendships
which have gladdened it--an hour of which the memory and the influence
will not pass away, but, I fondly trust, will incite those who will
bear my name after me, and to whose charge this gift will be confided
when I shall cease to behold it, better to deserve, though they cannot
more dearly appreciate, such a succession of kindnesses as that to
which the crowning grace is now added, and for which, with my whole
heart, I thank you."
* * * * *
Cultivate and exercise a serene faith, and you shall acquire wonderful
power and insight; its results are sure and illimitable, moulding and
moving to its purposes equally spirit, mind, and matter. It is the
power-endowing essential of all action.
* * * * *