Williamsburgh Word Portraits, No. 3
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WILLIAMSBURGH WORD PORTRAITS.
By Apelles —No. 3.
I hear that some of my former portraits have not been high colored and flattering enough to suit the people for whom they were designed. I did not expect that they would be. I paint people as others see them, and not as they fancy themselves, free from defects.
PORTRAIT No 7.
My subject is a tall sedate man, whose grey hair and invariable spectacles make him seem older at first sight than he probably is, while his exuberant spirits and constant vivacity would induce the idea that he is younger than his appearance indicates. I shall not be far wrong if I classify him under the somewhat ambiguous and extensive denomination of a middle aged man. He is best known to the public from his services in the Common Council, where high expectations were formed of him and where indeed he made his mark, but not such a mark as a man of his abilities should have made. He never did himself justice. Relying on his unusual fluency of speech, he was too apt to dispense with that minute study of facts and details which is essential to the highest success in a legislative body.—This fault I believe he has since seen, and endeavors to remedy, for he has spoken better, more concisely and coherently, (to speak more fluently would have been impossible) on public occasions, since he left the Common Council than when in it. The impression which his speeches always leave on my mind is—"This was not a first class speech, but it was one which none but a first class speaker could have uttered." My subject, despite his oratorical ability, shows to greater advantage in written than in spoken productions, because in the former he is necessitated to be slower than in speech—and the slower he is in composition, the better for his reputation, as he has a good solid substratum of sense and of sound information. All things considered, he is probably the very ablest controversialist in this district. His impulsiveness—rashness I had almost said—has often offended, for the time being, those who were the subjects of his satire or invective—but malice is a quality which he does not possess—and consequently, while there are few public speakers less careful in measuring their words, to avoid giving offense, there are few who are better liked personally, and who awaken less serious hostility toward themselves. I hope at no distant day to see him again in our city councils, or in some more extended sphere of public usefulness, for with his impulsiveness and haste toned down, and his logical and analytical faculties sharpened and practised by his professional pursuits, he would combine all the elements of a legislator of the very first class.
PORTRAIT No. 8.
There are some people whose dignity one must not trifle with—others, having more good humor and bonhommie, would excuse a slight liberty which the former would resent. I almost fear that my present subject is one of the former description—yet as my series of sketches would be incomplete if it did not include a man who has played so important a part in the history of Williamsburg as he, I feel constrained to take the liberty of sketching him. He is a stout, active, bustling, energetic man, with a voice and manner which indicate to the beholder that he knows as well as you do that he is somebody. He is somewhat of a politician, but latterly has been unfortunate in his aspirations, not having been willing to work his way onward with those metallic instruments which now-a-day are alone calculated to carve a path to high political distinction. In every other respect he is highly esteemed, holding a prominent position among the membership of one of the largest religious denominations in the district, and having as now President of a Cemetery Association, and as formally keeper of a U.S. bonded warehouse, displayed mercantile and business qualifications of a high class—though he started, I am told, from a very humble position in life, and owes his education and his social rise solely to his own persevering exertions.
PORTRAIT No. 9.
The public schools of the Eastern District, I am persuaded, will not suffer in comparison with any in the Union. And, as they have long been under one management, there is no mistaking where a great part of the credit is due. It is very difficult for a man to devote himself day and night, body and soul, to the promotion of an object without making some perceptible result evince itself in the direction at which he is aiming. And there is no more hard-working man in the city than my subject, who labors unceasingly for the good of the Schools. Physically he is a slightly made man—he moves about too much, and works too hard, to have any superfluous flesh gathering on his frame. Patient, indefatigable, persistent, he visits every school, examines every class, confers with every Principal and Trustee, now reporting or conversing on principles, now investigating the minutest details—attending just as regularly to the driest and most unpalatable routine, as to any public celebration which brings himself and his name prominently before the public eye. I have sometimes thought him mistaken on questions of policy, where his intense regard for the schools made him overlook the state of the city treasury; and I have at other times deemed him harsh towards some of the teachers—gentle flowers, who scarcely less than the children that they teach, need to be tenderly dealt with—yet in both cases the error has proceeded from an absorbing interest in the prosperity of the schools, which swallows up every other consideration, in the mind of one identified in every pulsation of his heart as in the very action of his daily life with the progress and growth of the institutions under his charge. Only to institutions of very kindred character and aims, can his attention be diverted. The Industrial School, and the City Mission, have reaped the benefit of his assistance, but all his thought and effort are for the benefit of the rising generation.