Carlyle's laugh, and other surprisesHigginson, Thomas Wentworth
History
Carlyle's laugh, and other surprises
Higginson, Thomas Wentworth
American literature -- History and criticism; Authors, American
His cheerful courage, however, was absolutely unbroken, and he came
forward to meet every guest with a look of sunshine. His voice and
manner, always animated and cheerful, remained the same. He had an
inexhaustible store of anecdotes and reminiscences, and could fill the
hour with talk without showing exhaustion. Seldom going out of the house,
unable to take more than very short drives, he dwelt absolutely in the
past, remembered the ways and deeds of all Cambridge and Boston literary
men, speaking genially of all and with malice of none. He had an endless
fund of good stories of personal experience. Were one to speak to him,
for instance, of Edward Everett, well known for the elaboration with
which he prepared his addresses, Bartlett would instantly recall how
Everett once came into his bookstore in search of a small pocket Bible
to be produced dramatically before a rural audience in a lecture; but in
this case finding none small enough, he chose a copy of Hoyle’s “Games”
instead, which was produced with due impressiveness when the time came.
Then he would describe the same Edward Everett, whom he once called
upon and found busy in drilling a few Revolutionary soldiers who were
to be on the platform during Everett’s famous Concord oration. These he
had drilled first to stand up and be admired at a certain point of the
oration, and then to sit down again, by signal, that the audience might
rather rise in their honor. Unfortunately, one man, who was totally deaf,
forgot the instructions and absolutely refused to sit down, because
the “squire” had told him to stand up. In a similar way, Bartlett’s
unimpaired memory held the whole circle of eminent men among whom he had
grown up from youth, and a casual visitor might infer from his cheery
manner that these comrades had just left the room. During his last
illness, mind and memory seemed equally unclouded until the very end, and
almost the last words he spoke were a caution to his faithful nurse not
to forget to pay the small sum due to a man who had been at work on his
driveway, he naming the precise sum due in dollars and cents.
He died at Cambridge, Massachusetts, on the morning of December 3, 1905,
aged eighty-five. Was his career, after all, more to be pitied or envied?
He lived a life of prolonged and happy labor among the very choicest gems
of human thought, and died with patient fortitude after all visible human
joys had long been laid aside.
XVI
HORACE ELISHA SCUDDER
HORACE ELISHA SCUDDER
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