I'm sorry, I'm not sure if I can help you.
I'm sorry, I'm not sure if I can help you.
I'm sorry, I'm not sure if I can help you.
I'm sorry, I'm not sure if I can help you.
I'm sorry, I'm not sure if I can help you.
I'm sorry, I'm not sure if I can help you.
I'm sorry, I'm not sure if I can help you.
I'm sorry, I'm not sure if I can help you.
I'm sorry, I'm not sure if I can help you.
I'm sorry, I'm not sure if I can help you.
I'm sorry, I'm not sure if I can help you.
I'm sorry, I'm not sure if I can help you.
I'm sorry, I'm not sure if I can help you.
I'm sorry, I'm not sure if I can help you.
I'm sorry, I'm not sure if I can help you.
I'm sorry, I'm not sure if I can help you.
I'm sorry, I'm not sure if I can help you.
I'm sorry, I'm not sure if I can help you.
I'm sorry, I'm not sure if I can help you.
You, you left me with your skies.
Your skies are gray as a stone.
You, you left me with your skies.
You, you left me with your skies.
You, you left me with your skies.
I'm sorry, I'm not sure if I can help you.
I'm sorry, I'm not sure if I can help you.
I'm sorry, I'm not sure if I can help you.
I'm sorry, I'm not sure if I can help you.
I'm sorry, I'm not sure if I can help you.
I'm sorry, I'm not sure if I can help you.
I'm sorry, I'm not sure if I can help you.
I'm sorry, I'm not sure if I can help you.
I'm sorry, I'm not sure if I can help you.
I'm sorry, I'm not sure if I can help you.
I'm sorry, I'm not sure if I can help you.
I'm sorry, I'm not sure if I can help you.
I'm sorry, I'm not sure if I can help you.
I'm sorry, I'm not sure if I can help you.
I'm sorry, I'm not sure if I can help you.
I'm sorry, I'm not sure if I can help you.
I would ride off to some remote place where I wouldn't have to watch the carnage.
Ride off to where, General? Certainly not Springfield.
And not even Galena anymore.
I'm afraid they have you outflanked this time.
I won't argue the point, Mr.
President.
It's funny how one tends to recall the context of some presumed high point of his own brief residence in the flesh.
I called you General when I could have more appropriately called you Mr.
President.
I apologize.
In my view, you are both being insufferably sentimental for proper spirits.
Call him Ulysses and be done with it.
As you like it, Mr.
Shakespeare.
How sharper than a serpent's tooth is one's own wit turned against himself? It was most unworthy of me, William.
But it is your own fault for saying so much that lesser mortals and former mortals can appropriate and misapply.
Gentlemen, I hesitate to interrupt so lavish a flow of deserved praise, but could an alleged fellow immortal direct today's discussion to a pertinent contemporary issue? Alleged immortal Alexander? Surely you jest.
What can possibly have induced this unseemly humility in our one and only golden boy? Please, Mr.
President, let's leave the unfortunate patina of my presumed likeness out of these considerations, shall we? You must admit, Mr.
Hamilton, that gold is an appropriate material with which to memorialize these countries' estimable first secretary of the treasury.
I'm sure even General de Gaulle would have approved.
Take heed, Robert.
You know how Alexander felt about the French.
Since he is now in our dimension, I will confront General de Gaulle in good time.
But I think I could have worked very well with Monsieur La Salle.
For one thing, he operated substantially to the west of my geographic interests.
Also, he was well ahead of my time and hence not readily subject to my youthful prejudices regarding the French.
Oui, I was ahead of your time, Monsieur Hamilton, and my own time too, as I reconstructed.
The recent sesquicentennial year brought it all back to my mind again.
So, Illinois became a state in 1818, a mere yesterday.
Do you realize that 137 years before that date, in 1681, I had a great and viable plan for Illinois? With just a little cooperation in some high and low places, Illinois would be nearing its tricentennial as a political entity.
Think of that, Monsieur.
C 'est dommage.
Robert, my friend, the only certainty about what might have been is that it never was.
Take counsel from one who was even ahead of your time.
The best -led schemes of mice and men gung off the glee.
I cannot believe what I'm hearing.
You, William Shakespeare, voting another author to make your own well -considered point? Why not, Hans? Sometimes, though but rarely, I do submit, one's own may by some slight nuance prove insufficient.
A most laudable attitude, Master William.
Gentlemen, this mutual admiration society doth begin to pour.
Could we possibly get back to the here and now? Do forgive our rambling digressions, Alexander.
You were on the verge of revealing the nature of some personal travail.
Is it serious, really? Serious, certainly, if the maligning of one's character is serious.
Grossly maligned, I might add, and in the presence of a pretty young lady.
Grossly maligned, Alexander? This young man, a most pompous and self -righteous example of the political illiterate, invoked my name in support of an attack upon the principles of a lithe and supple lass of liberal persuasions.
Of course, I did not observe you that closely, Alexander, but is it not said that you yourself were wont to lay siege to the principles of beauteous young ladies when time and circumstance permitted? Good point, William.
I had forgotten those stories of Alexander's predilection toward paltritude on the wing, so to speak.
Gentlemen, I beg of you.
The principles I speak of as here being under assault are political.
This young blackguard is even now essaying to substitute a most reactionary set of ideas for the girls' own, and he had the effrontery to call them expressions of a conservative philosophy.
Moreover, he asserted baldly that, and I quote, Hamilton would agree with me since he was the first great American conservative.
Baldedash! Where do these simpletons learn their history? Nobody really learns history, Alexander, least of all those who helped make it.
I'll second that estimate, William.
And along that general line, Abraham, did you really believe that men would little note what you said there? I refer to your little Gettysburg speech, of course.
Well, to be truthful, I did think, or at least I hoped, that what I was saying might be noted.
But it never occurred to me that what I said there would turn out to be my most memorable statement ever.
I would imagine you would be hard -pressed, William, to choose your own most memorable passage out of so very many.
True enough, Hans, but fortunately or not, it is not really my choice.
The evidence to date strongly suggests that to be or not to be, that is the question, is most likely the most often quoted.
And you know, out of its proper place, it isn't much of an expression.
Still, it has a resolute cadence to it, Mr.
Shakespeare.
I used it more than once, under my breath, of course, on those not infrequent occasions when I was agonizing over a decision in the field.
Why, thank you, Ulysses.
I am flattered indeed that a great general of history uses one of my lines without my having ascribed it to him, after the fact.
Please, Mr.
Shakespeare and gentlemen, I yield to no man in my high regard for the good thought translated to the noble phrase.
But there is a contemporary situation that, in my opinion, merits our collective attention.
Of course, Alex, your self -appointed fellow traveler.
But even if we were here bodily, I doubt that we could effectively counter strongly held attitudes distinctly contrary to our own.
I was certainly unsuccessful in many such confrontations.
And believe me, I am not at all happy at being presumably aligned with many today who so loudly proclaim adherence to my ideas.
I am even losing ground with certain segments of the society who have long been legitimately claiming me as their champion.
But that's the way the tides of history have inflow.
Of course, you are far more the firebrand than I, Alex.
Perhaps that accounts for the desire to be involved directly, even though you departed this life sixty years ahead of me.
And I departed, not by design, I assure you, more than a century ahead of you, Monsieur Hamilton.
In all due respect to your sense of honor, if I were faced with your dilemma, I would ignore the square young man and look at the round young lady.
Bravo, Robert, spoken like a true Frenchman of any age.
Alexander, we do sympathize with your rather earthly view of the situation that has brought you into conflict with this time.
But what could we do about it in any case? Perhaps we could all concentrate our spiritual powers into a confluence of extrasensory admonition or encouragement.
But given the present low sensitivity of human response, it could be effective in only the most special instances.
Besides, if your young lady is at all secure in her own convictions, she can most likely resist the implications of so misguided a youth as you described.
I suppose you're right, all of you.
Actually, she does appear to be withstanding his assaults on her reason quite admirably.
Perhaps our being momentarily concerned strengthened her resolve.
Perhaps it did, Alexander, but I do not believe we should pursue such a course of intervention, at least not for some time.
While we're on that subject, Mr.
Hamilton, would you call yourself a conservative in today's terms? A conservative, yes, General, but not a reactionary, which is a more appropriate label for many today who call themselves conservative.
I was never against change or even experimentation.
Maybe I appeared to be so on occasion, but the point is I never felt that way.
And as a highly vocal advocate of strong central government, Alex, you would most likely be at odds with many today who, while calling themselves conservatives, fear the implications of a preeminent federal government, yet would never hesitate to invoke it against dissent.
Well, Mr.
President, there never has been any doubt that power can be grossly misused in any age, as Mr.
Shakespeare's plays so eloquently note.
But could you imagine 13 states holding together for long with all of their options for contrary action left open, let alone 50 states? I must say, Master Hamilton, you were most precocious in expressing your attitudes back there in the colonial ferment.
Why, you were a veritable teenager when your protests appeared in well -noted pamphlets in those revolutionary times.
I was at least 20 before my activities attracted much following.
Well, that's not significantly beyond teenage, so precocious is the proper term.
I was more impressed by his being a battalion commander at age 26.
I was a practicing failure at 38.
But only temporarily, General.
You may have started late, but history is recorded well and truly that you most successfully closed the gap.
But while we have Alexander on the podium, so to speak, I would like to say that in addition to his many other high achievements, the fact that he wrote most of President Washington's farewell address impresses me.
Heaven knows that statement has remained an enduring and oft -quoted legacy.
It was no less President Washington's message because of my involvement, I assure you.
Of course not, Alexander.
I used to feel that way about the lines my character spoke.
To be credible, the words must fit the character and vice versa.
Wouldn't you say so, Hunts? By all means, William.
But I would hardly think that Mr.
Hamilton would have considered President Washington his character.
Oh, well, hardly.
The terms are relative, gentlemen.
A character is not necessarily inferior to the author, and privileged characters might, in special circumstances, be permitted to modify their lines to some slight degree.
Look at them! Just look at them! What do you see, Mr.
LaSalle? Some new threat to your beloved portage base? No, nothing new.
Just more of the same.
One cannot imagine how pure this place was when I first saw it.
Mon Dieu! How we could have used one of those boat trailers.
And with one of those noisy beasts, I could have got home from Bixberg in time for supper.
Are you saying, gentlemen, that the here and now has some few good points to offset partially its ominous negative aspects? My vote is aye to the visual side, Mr.
Shakespeare.
They are not so different from my time.
There are just so many more influences.
Perhaps this is no time for a simple storyteller.
I disagree, Hunts.
I believe that a simple storyteller, at least one of your magnitude, might make a lot of points, even in all of this clatter.
Looking back again, which is really easier for all of us, think what television could have done for the Lincoln -Douglas debates.
I don't know about that.
You see, mine would have been the make -up problem in that series.
What do you think, Ludwig? We haven't heard from you since your noisy interloper left the scene.
You know how I abhor discussion of politics from any age.
I have put in a useful afternoon of work on my twelfth symphony.
Oh, no, my thirteenth.
The twelfth is completed.
Though I shall reconsider the third movement one day soon.
Only your thirteenth, Ludwig? I would have expected you to be well up in the twenties by now.
You were always such a prodigious worker.
In due course, Herr Shakespeare.
After all, there's plenty of time now.
Ah, so much time.
