Page:The Green Bag (1889–1914), Volume 02.pdf/369

may amuse you and lead you to look up the piece [referring to Lucian's Lawsuit of the Vow els]. Had I access to books here, I would search for it; but alas! I can walk but a few steps at a time, and to climb a library stepladder would be stepping into futurity. The doctors say I must not work, even to write a letter. So I stop." This in his beautifully legible handwriting,

with his unfailing ac curacy of punctuation. His classical learning and accuracy are illus trated by the following to me under date of July 2, 1882: —

He was singularly exact in the use of lan guage. I once wrote him that I sometimes flirted with my first love, literature. He answered : — "Permit me to say that you do not mean that you 'flirt ' with your first love. You ' dally ' with her. ' Flirt ' has come to mean ' a trifling with.' ' Dalliance' is a tenderer word, implying a longing for and a satisfaction with. ' Flirt ' has an evil sense nowa-days." His love of horses and of philology is shown in the follow ing : —

"In your last number (23, vol. 13) of the 'Al bany Law Journal,' at page 244. you cite Comly v. Hillgar, Pennsylvania Supreme Court, that a trial of speed of horses for a premium is a horse race for a wager. Per haps my love of horses, and fondness for the sport of a trotting con test have warped my judgment, but in Harris v. White, of which I have ' Latus sum just read the proof for Laudari me abs te, pater, 8 1 st New York, the laudato vim.' Court of Appeals, New CHARLES J. FOLGER. That is the correct ren York, are in conflict with dering from a play, Pennsylvania, I writ ' Hector,' by Cneus Naevius. I have seen it ing an elaborate (if no other kind of an) opin freely rendered thus : — ion. In that case I almost define judicially what to ' go to harness ' means. I also speak of ' My spirits, sire, are raised Thus to be praised by one the world has praised.' ' pools.'" It is the same sentiment as that in Lord Mans Referring to this case again, he wrote : — field's letter to Chief-Justice McKean, to be "I see that you ' took ' some of the phrases in found in preface to first volume Dallas (Penn.) Reports — 'That sensibility which praise from Harris v. White. When I penned them, I won the praiseworthy never fails to give — ' Laus est dered whether any one would. It has chanced to me several times to find an appreciative reader laudari a te.' I did not wish your classical acu men to consider me careless in the use of a of an opinion, in some of its minor features, like quotation, so I write to you to correct the proof, this I am speaking of; and it gratifies me to have that is, to correct it in your mind. It is too late it so, more than to receive expressions of satis faction with the closeness and force of the logic. to correct it in the volume." "I write to make to you a correction in my letter to the judges, which appears in the 84th New York. There is an error, not of my making, but of the com positor and proof-reader, in the Latin quotation — or rather, two errors. First, it should not be one line; second, it should not be ' Loetot nam,' but ' Lotus sum.'