Autobiography of Seventy Years, Vol. 1-2 — John Shaqi
Autobiography of Seventy Years, Vol. 1-2Hoar, George Frisbie
History
Autobiography of Seventy Years, Vol. 1-2
Hoar, George Frisbie
United States -- History -- 1865-1921; United States -- Politics and government -- 1865-1900
Mr. Webster, who was consulted as to where Emerson should
settle, said, "Settle! Let him settle anywhere. Let him
settle in the midst of the back woods of Maine, the clients
will throng after him." Mr. Everett delivered an eloquent
eulogy after his death, at the Phi Beta Kappa dinner at Harvard.
Dr. Holmes' exquisite tribute in his Phi Beta poems is well
known:
Thou calm, chaste scholar! I can see thee now,
The first young laurels on they pallid brow,
O'er thy slight figure floating lightly down
In graceful folds the academic gown,
On thy curled lip the classic lines that taught
How nice the mind that sculptured them with thought,
And triumph glistening in the clear blue eye,
Too bright to live,--but Oh! too fair to die.
Dr. Holmes also says in his last tribute to Waldo:
"Of Charles Chauncey, the youngest brother, I knew something
in my college days. A beautiful, high-souled, pure, exquisitely
delicate nature in a slight but finely wrought mortal frame,
he was for me the very ideal of an embodied celestial intelligence.
I may venture to mention a trivial circumstance, because it
points to the character of his favorite reading, which was
likely to be guided by the same tastes as his brother's, and
may have been specially directed by him. Coming into my room
one day, he took up a copy of Hazlitt's British Poets. He
opened it to the poem of Andrew Marvell's, entitled, 'The
Nymph Complaining for the Death of her Fawn,' which he read
to me with delight irradiating his expressive features. The
lines remained with me, or many of them, from that hour,--
Had it lived long, it would have been
Lilies without, roses within.
"I felt as many have felt after being with his brother, Ralph
Waldo, that I had entertained an angel visitant. The fawn
of Marvell's imagination survives in my memory as the fitting
image to recall this beautiful youth; a soul glowing like
the rose of morning with enthusiasm, a character white as
the lilies in its purity."
The late Samuel May, who was in the class after Emerson's
at Harvard, told me that the impression his character and
person made upon the students of his time was so great that
when he passed through the college yard, everybody turned
to look after him, as in later days men looked after Webster
when he passed down State Street.
The Rev. Joseph H. Cross, now (1903) still living, the oldest
graduate of Harvard, was his classmate. I received this letter
from him a few years ago:
66 BRADFORD ST., LAWRENCE,
January 8, 1897.
HON. G. F. HOAR,
_Dear Sir:_
Yours of 5th inst. is before me; and I am glad to remember
my classmate Emerson and answer your inquiries. I knew that
he studied law in your Honored Father's office, and was betrothed
to your eldest sister.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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