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SOME PAGES TROM MY BOOK CHARLES O’CONOR. How the Great Lawyer Spends the Evening of His Days. (Nantucket Correspondence of the Providence Press.) After that long and terrible ill ness, when Mr. O’Conor’s life was despaired of by the whole counsel of physicians, and his well-written obit uary waited for a fortnight in all the New York newspaper offices, he came to Nantucket for recuperation and a quiet summer’s rest. He re turned to his city office in the fall restored and ready to resume his le gal drudgery, but began to fail so rapidly that his physicians summar ily ordered him back to Nantucket. It was then that he abandoned his practice and regularly retired from the bar, settling himself for the rest of his days in Nantucket. The O’Conor castle is a large gabled frame house, with broad porches on its seaward front, and, standing on the very edge of the bare and breezy cliff, is one of the most conspicuous objects as one approaches the island from the sea. Over $30,000 was spent in the construction, and, al - the exterior is plain and sim ple, the interior is most completely appointed and elegantly furnished. Furnaces and fireplaces defy the winter blast, and polished floors with India rugs and rattan furniture make it the most delightful of sum mer homes. This grim old bachelor, whom the gossips persistently tried to marry to Mrs. Hicks-Lord, is as much a character as any of the Nan tucket natives, and inhabits the great mansion in solitary state, save when his nephews and nieces come down upon him during the summer months He rambles about the cliffs and the town with his hat on the back of his head and both hands in his pock ets, and is seen with one hand out only when he has to carry a bundle or an umbrella. Possessed of a large fortune, and with a great and honorable career to look back upon, he takes life easily in these years past his three score and ten, and de votes himself to lengthening out this vacation part of his life. Lawyers still appeal to him for decisions, and he acts as referee in many knotty cases, writing out his opinions in his own snug library, within sight and sound of the sea. At present he i; busying himself with a fireproof brick and iron building in which to store his books, and this new library is removed a good distance from th * mansion to prevent any chance of a conflagration. It is solid and sub stantial enough to defy the eleme L for centuries, and may fitly serve as a vault when he ceases to be the liv ing occupant. His law library, com prising several thousand volumes, i«s regarded as one of the most comp l t and valuable collections in the profes sion, and with the addition of his volume of general literature will make an imposing show when proper ly arranged in their new home. “LA MARSEILLAISE.” The story of this grand composi tion, the national hymn of France, possesses thrilling interest. To be brief it was at Strasbourg, in the last week of April, 1792, that, news of the Austrian declaration of war having been received, the Mayor, M. Freder ick de Dietrich, invited one of the numerous guests at his table, Rouget de I’lsle, an officer of engineers, aged thirty-two, to compose a war song for the soldiers about to set out to meet the enemy. The words and music were written during the night, and the song was given to an enthu siastic audience next day by Dietrich’s niece. The piece was giv en to band masters of the several regiments in garrison, and perform d in public Sunday, April 29, a! th'- parade on the Place d’Armees. The words and music were printed imme diately on a half-sheet quarto b Th. de Dannebach, printer at Stras bourg—a publication which availed Rouget de I’lsle when subsequently his claim of authorship was contest ed. The song was popular; bv th 29th of June it had appeared in the -Journal des Departments Meridion aux. It spread to Montpelier, then to Marseilles, where a copy of the “Chant de guerre de I’armee du Rhin”—to give it its original title —was given to each of the famous bands of Marseilles, “who knew how to die.” They brought the song to Paris July 30, 1792, where it took the name it has ever since retained. Tn his book, published in 1796, Rouget de I’lsle calls it “Le chant des com bats, vulgarement ‘l’hymne des Mar seilles,’ ” and dedicates it “to the manes of Sylvain Bailey, first May or of Paris.” The original version was addressed to Marshal Luckner, and a copy was sent to Gretry at .Paris, as the musician records in his “Memoirs.” It was a particularly unlucky song, for, apart from the author’s own troubles, his mother died of grief, attributing the horrors of the Reign of Terror to her son’s verse, and Mayor Dietrich and Mar shal Luckner were guillotined. The “Marseillaise” was first iden tified with the events of the 10th of August; at the feast in imita tion of those ordered by Lycurgus, October 14, 1792, the seventh stanza was sung by a chorus of children. This additional verse was long at tributed to Marie-Joseph Chenier, but in 1848 a poet, Louis du Bois, put in his claim to the authorship—a claim long received, but that was ut terly unfounded. The seventh verse was written by a young priest, An tione Pessoneaux, professor of rhet oric at the College of Vienne (Isere). Vienne was celebrating the feast of the federation, July 14, 1792; the Marseillais was there on their mem orable march to Paris, and the Pro fessor wrote the verse for his pupils, who sang it with immense effect as a farewell to the Marseillais next morn ing. Lucky for Pessonneaux that he wrote it, for some months after he was hauled before the revolutionary tribunal at Lyons, where trials lasted WATSON’S WEEKLY JEFFERSONIAN. but a minute or so and sentence wa.-j pronounced in silence. Tessonnaux’s ■ patriotism was admitted, but he wasl a priest. “Who are you"/” asked!’ the Judge. “The Abbe Pessonneaux,!’ author of the last verse of ‘La Mar-J' seillaise.’ ” The judge laid his hand f upon the black cloth, guards, jailers and citizens made way respectfully, ' and the abbe passed out, tree to g./ where he would. He died in a little parish in Duerphiny, March 9, 1835. —St. Louis Globe-Democrat. NAPOLEON THE GREAT AS A NOVEL READER. (International Review.) When Napoleon became Emperor he strove in vain to make the trou bled and feverish years of his power prod uce a literature. He himself was one of the most voracious read ers of novels that ever lived. He was always asking for the newest of the new, and unfortunately even the new romances of his period were hopelessly bad. Barbier, his libra rian, had orders to send parcels of fresh fiction to his Majesty wher ever he might happen to be, and great loads of novels followed Napo leon to Germany, Spain, Italy, Rus sia. The conqueror .was very hard to please. He read in his traveling carriage, and after skimming a few pages would throw a volume that bored him out of the window into the highway. He might have been tracked by his trail of romances, as was Hop-o’-My-Thumb, in the fairy tale, by the white stones he dropped behind him. Poor Barbier, who min istered to a passion for novels that demanded twenty volumes a day, was at his wit’s end. He tried to foist on the Emperor the romances of the year before last; but these Napoleon had generally read and he refused, with imperial scorn, to look at them again. He ordered a traveling li brary of 3,000 volumes to be made for him, but it was proved that the task could not be accomplished in less than six years. The expense, if only fifty copies of each example had been printed, would have amounted to more than six million francs. A Roman Emperor would not have al lowed these considerations to stand in his way; but Najoleon, after all. was a modern. He contented himself with a selection of books convenient ly small in shape, and packed in sumptuous cases. The classical writ ers of France could never content Napoleon, and even from Moscow, in 1812, he wrote to Barbier clamorous for new books and good ones. Long before they could have reached Mos cow, Napoleon was flying homeward before Koutousoff and Benningsen. THE VALUE OF THE MAN. Jefferson placed the man at the foundation of our system of govern ment. It was by giving the citizen’s abilities the fullest play and the widest expansion that we developed into a nation. Who shall say that Itha unlettered Daniel Boone was of "less value to America than Daniel iWebster the statesman? Who shall I decide the relative merits of the {student in his library and the farm er that feeds him? Who shall deny that the man whose business ability and financial credit pushes a rail road through a wilderness where homes and citizens may multiply is not as serviceable to the nation as the president in the White House who adequately does his part? In other lands the man was of small account —there the trimmings made the dish. Why is it that we are now proposing to reverse our pol icy and accept in its stead one al ready proved faulty and acknowl edged to be wrong where it has been crystallized into a system? Yet that is exactly what our president offers us when he sets a rule to which all business must mark time —when he puts a commission in no wise re markable for ability or comprehen sion of modern conditions to pre scribe rules alike for the foolish and the wise. Nothing like it has been known since the days of Procrustes who fitted all men to the same meas ure by cutting off the long and stretching the short. Start two railroads through terri tories of like character; one will succeed because of good manage ment, and the other will fail, but the president sets the same rules for both. Money is needed for develop ment and not the business sense of those who loan, but a commission of politicians must decide what sum is sufficient to represent the values offered to secure the bonds. Who can say what is “overcapitaliza tion”? Harriman is charged with the crime of “watering stock”; Mellen increases stock of the same character 100 per cent, but no charge is made against him! But who shall say whether Harriman’s success will not justify the confi dence of the investor? Who will guarantee that Mellen will pay back the credit he has earned? Millions were invested and lost in Kansas lands. Why not punish overcapital ization in that instance? The wealth of Kansas today has outstripped the dreams of her most sanguine promo ters, but these would have been con demned had Roosevelt’s policies been applied to their methods. The American merchant marine has been crushed out of existence by laws intended to nourish its growth; the manufacturers of Massachusetts are passing solemn resolutions ask ing for the repeal of the law for which they begged a few years ago. The South which was made to pay for the protection of others is out growing all the favored children, sim ply because the struggle for e\i-'- ence here has been equalized, and the man of fitness rises to the top. What will the nation be when indi vidual merit is denied recognition, when all initiative is crushed to serve a system and we begin to adopt the policies that have made China what she is? —Florida Times-Union. PAGE THREE