could be permitted to contribute to such a fund except such as had a right to the privilege, for privilege it was felt to be.  Double, triple the sum could readily have been obtained.  I had the great satisfaction of being permitted to join the select few and to give the matter a little attention upon our side of the Atlantic.  Of course I never thought of mentioning the matter to dear Dr. Holmes—­not that he was not one of the elect, but that no author or professional man should be asked to contribute money to funds which, with rare exceptions, are best employed when used for themselves.  One morning, however, I received a note from the doctor, saying that it had been whispered to him that there was such a movement on foot, and that I had been mentioned in connection with it, and if he were judged worthy to have his name upon the roll of honor, he would be gratified.  Since he had heard of it he could not rest without writing to me, and he should like to hear in reply.  That he was thought worthy goes without saying.

This is the kind of memorial any man might wish.  I venture to say that there was not one who contributed to it who was not grateful to the kind fates for giving him the opportunity.

CHAPTER XXIII

BRITISH POLITICAL LEADERS

In London, Lord Rosebery, then in Gladstone’s Cabinet and a rising statesman, was good enough to invite me to dine with him to meet Mr. Gladstone, and I am indebted to him for meeting the world’s first citizen.  This was, I think, in 1885, for my “Triumphant Democracy"[63] appeared in 1886, and I remember giving Mr. Gladstone, upon that occasion, some startling figures which I had prepared for it.

[Footnote 63:  Triumphant Democracy, or Fifty Years’ March of the Republic. London and New York, 1886.]

I never did what I thought right in a social matter with greater self-denial, than when later the first invitation came from Mr. Gladstone to dine with him.  I was engaged to dine elsewhere and sorely tempted to plead that an invitation from the real ruler of Great Britain should be considered as much of a command as that of the ornamental dignitary.  But I kept my engagement and missed the man I most wished to meet.  The privilege came later, fortunately, when subsequent visits to him at Hawarden were made.

Lord Rosebery opened the first library I ever gave, that of Dunfermline, and he has recently (1905) opened the latest given by me—­one away over in Stornoway.  When he last visited New York I drove him along the Riverside Drive, and he declared that no city in the world possessed such an attraction.  He was a man of brilliant parts, but his resolutions were

    “Sicklied o’er with the pale cast of thought.”