TOD ROBINSON.

 

            HE WAS not just like any of the others of the Argonauts. A matured man when he reached the west coast : a fine scholar, an eminent lawyer, an orator most careful in his selection of language, always in a public address to adjust himself to his audience; at home talking to a company of farmers, though he had but vague ideas of a farmer's life, but leaving an impression upon his hearers that a great fanner was spoiled when he became a lawyer; most intense in his sectional prejudices, but veiling them all in his dealings with men ; imperious in his self-consciousness, but in his life meeting all men as though, to him, they were all on the same plane, he managed to draw to him the confidence and generally the affection of all persons brought in contact with him.

            I never could explain his motives to my own satisfaction, but I presume that his thought was much the same as that of the great Blucher of Prussia. He had a theory that there were only two kinds of men in the world, those whom we might call thoroughbreds and those who might be rated under the general term of mustangs ; that the first were entitled to all courtesies because of the blood in their veins, no matter what might be their personal foibles ; the others as not worth discussing pedigrees with. He was a distinguished lawyer in California, up in the front rank with Baker, Randolph, Felton, McAllister and the rest, and he maintained his place when the magnitude of the fees and the tremendous importance of the issues to be decided drew that shining galaxy of legal talent to the Comstock in the first four years of the life of the great lode.

            Then he was a most interesting speaker on any theme, though with him a speech was always a serious matter. He seldom attempted to mingle the least humor in a public speech, rarely permitting his imagination any play in rounding a period, or illuminating a sentence. He depended upon the cold

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logic of truth to point his argument and the perfect logical rhythm of his thoughts to kindle men's admiration. Naturally he was most effective in the court-room, one of the class that judges lean upon, for he never juggled with a legal principle and never misstated a legal proposition.

            In private he was most winsome, and had a happy faculty of asking a few questions of a man that left an impression upon the man that he was solicitous about him and his.

            He had mingled much with the world and was a shrewd judge of men and knew from what point to approach each one. Inherently he was a lover of justice, and that the right should prevail, and could have outlined what society would be when men had lost all their weaknesses, and all were striving toward a clearer and softer light, perhaps with as much vividness as Starr King himself.

            But, after all, not one in a hundred of his close friends ever understood the ruling trait of his life, so carefully did he veil it.

            He was at heart a sublime egotist. I have read of a few such men, but he was the only one I ever knew, personally.

            A friend said to him one day : "Judge, I came up from Carson today. I was talking with Chief Justice Bronson of the Supreme Court last evening and he said to me : "Do you know that the argument delivered yesterday before the court by Tod Robinson was the most profound and convincing legal argument I ever listened to?"

            With an air of perfect conviction and candor, Robinson simply replied: "It was."

            Does not that remind one of what William Pinkney said of the great Samuel Dexter, the marvelous Massachusetts lawyer ?

            Dexter was one day replying in the Supreme Court to Rush when Rush, turning to Pinkney, said : "That is a very able argument," when Pinkney simply responded : "Wait till you hear me."

            But egotism has been a trait in many a great mind. The Earl of Normandy made a speech in parliament which the Edinburg Review praised highly, whereupon Brougham wrote

102 AS I REMEMBER THEM.

the editor of the Review, saying: "The speech was very good, only that it should have been less praised," adding : "He is an excellent fellow, and deserves great credit; but, truth to tell, his speech was a failure so much so that I was forced to bear down to his assistance."

            But Mr. Robinson's self-esteem seemed to be unconscious. It was like that of Daniel Webster, who never seemed conscious of anything like vanity, but who one day attacked a legal proposition of an opponent at the bar, and was reminded that he was assailing a dictum of Lord Camden. He simply turned to the court and delivered a wonderful eulogy upon Lord Camden's greatness as a jurist, which electrified the court and bar, but then, in his profound way, added : "But, may it please your honor, I differ from Lord Camden." Even Thomas Jefferson possessed that trait ; John Adams had it stronger than Jefferson, while with John Quincy Adams it was almost a disease, and if we go further back, the Apostle Paul could have held his own with old Tom Benton himself.

            If Tod Robinson was conscious of any such trait, it never appeared in his public utterances, either at the bar or on the rostrum. He always talked to his theme and never forgot for a moment that it was the theme and not himself that the court, or the jury, or the audience desired to have elucidated.

            And while he was fierce and bitter in his political views, by inheritance and training, he was a fervent apostle of order and law. The vigilance committee of 1856, he was furious over, declaring that the committee was taking advantage of their own wrong ; that had they not shirked their duties as citizens of a free country, as voters and jurors, the trouble would never have been forced upon the city of San Francisco to its disgrace and the disgrace of the Golden State.

            He was not like Mount Shasta, springing from the valley, thus making his summit seem higher than it really was, but more like Mount Whitney, which rising amid surrounding peaks, is dwarfed a little by those peaks until tested by a perfect instrument which reveals its sovereign majesty.