Although he was a convinced believer in the Republican form of
government, having, as he expressed it, "no use for the King business,"
he was fully alive to the peculiar dangers and difficulties with which
modern progress has confronted popular institutions.
When the publication of some work like Rosebery's Chatham or Monypenny's
Disraeli afforded an occasion, Mr. Pulitzer would spend an hour before
we left the table in giving us a picture of some exciting crisis in
English politics, the high lights picked out in pregnant phrases of
characterization, in brilliant epitome of the facts, in spontaneous
epigram, and illustrative anecdote. Whether he spoke of the Holland
House circle, of the genius of Cromwell, of Napoleon's campaigns, or
sought to point a moral from the lives of Bismarck, Metternich, Louis
XI, or Kossuth, every sentence was marked by the same penetrating
analysis, the same facility of expression, the same clearness of
thought.
On rare occasions he talked of his early days, telling us in a charming,
simple, and unaffected manner of the tragic and humorous episodes with
which his youth had been crowded. Of the former I recall a striking
description of a period during which he filled two positions in St.
Louis, one involving eight hours' work during the day, the other eight
hours during the night.
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