It is said that for three hundred years after the battle of Thermopylae every child in the public schools of Greece was required to recite from memory the names of the three hundred martyrs who fell in the defence of that Pass.  It would be a crowning triumph in patriotic education if every school child in America could contemplate each day the grand character and utter the inspiring name of Abraham Lincoln. [Loud applause.]

He has passed from our view.  We shall not meet him again until he stands forth to answer to his name at the roll-call when the great of earth are summoned in the morning of the last great reveille.  Till then [apostrophizing Lincoln’s portrait which hung above the President’s head], till then, farewell, gentlest of all spirits, noblest of all hearts!  The child’s simplicity was mingled with the majestic grandeur of your nature.  You have handed down unto a grateful people the richest legacy which man can leave to man—­the memory of a good name, the inheritance of a great example! [Loud and enthusiastic applause.]

* * * * *

SIRES AND SONS

[Speech of Horace Porter at the eighty-sixth annual dinner of the New England Society in the City of New York, December 22, 1891.  J. Pierpont Morgan, the President, occupied the chair, and called upon General Porter to speak on “Sires and Sons.”]

MR. PRESIDENT AND GENTLEMEN:—­All my shortcomings upon this occasion must be attributed to the fact that I have just come from last night’s New England dinner, in Brooklyn, which occurred largely this morning.  They promised me when I accepted their invitation that I should get away early, and I did.  I am apprehensive that the circumstance may give rise to statements which may reflect upon my advancing years, and that I may be pointed out as one who has dined with the early New Englanders.

I do not like the fact of Depew’s coming into the room so late to-night and leaving so short an interval between his speech and mine.  His conduct is of a piece with the conduct of so many married men nowadays who manifest such exceedingly bad taste and want of tact in dying only such a very short time before the remarriage of their wives.

I have acquired some useful experience in attending New England Society dinners in various cities.  I dine with New Englanders in Boston; the rejoicing is marked, but not aggressive.  I dine with them in New York; the hilarity and cheer of mind are increased in large degree.  I dine with them in Philadelphia; the joy is unconfined and measured neither by metes nor bounds.  Indeed, it has become patent to the most casual observer that the further the New Englander finds himself from New England the more hilarious is his rejoicing.  Whenever we find a son of New England who has passed beyond the borders of his own section, who has stepped out into the damp cold fog of a benighted outside world and has brought up in another State, he seems to take more pride than ever in his descent—­doubtless because he feels that it has been so great. [Laughter.]