They were enthusiastic, just as we men have been over the character and
the work of Mr. Mabie. And when they were through they said that
portrait, fine as it is, that work, beautiful as it is, that piece of
humanity on that canvas, gracious and fine as it is, does not rise to
those perfections that exist in the man himself. Come up, Mr. Alexander.
[The reference was to James W. Alexander, who happened to be sitting
--beneath the portrait of himself on the wall.] Now, I should come up
and show myself. But he cannot do it, he cannot do it. He was born that
way, he was reared in that way. Let his modesty be an example, and I
wish some of you had it, too. But that is just what I have been saying
--that portrait, fine as it is, is not as fine as the man it represents,
and all the things that have been said about Mr. Mabie, and certainly
they have been very nobly worded and beautiful, still fall short of the
real Mabie.
INTRODUCING NYE AND RILEY
James Whitcomb Riley and Edgar Wilson Nye (Bill Nye) were to
give readings in Tremont Temple, Boston, November, 1888.
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