Complete Prose Works: Specimen Days and Collect, November Boughs and Goodbye My FancyWhitman, Walt
History
Complete Prose Works: Specimen Days and Collect, November Boughs and Goodbye My Fancy
Whitman, Walt
American literature
Some thirty-five years ago, in New York city, at Tammany hall, of
which place I was then a frequenter, I happen'd to become quite well
acquainted with Thomas Paine's perhaps most intimate chum, and certainly
his later years' very frequent companion, a remarkably fine old man,
Col. Fellows, who may yet be remember'd by some stray relics of that
period and spot. If you will allow me, I will first give a description
of the Colonel himself. He was tall, of military bearing, aged about 78,
I should think, hair white as snow, clean-shaved on the face, dress'd
very neatly, a tail-coat of blue cloth with metal buttons, buff vest,
pantaloons of drab color, and his neck, breast and wrists showing the
whitest of linen. Under all circumstances, fine manners; a good but not
profuse talker, his wits still fully about him, balanced and live
and undimm'd as ever. He kept pretty fair health, though so old. For
employment--for he was poor--he had a post as constable of some of the
upper courts. I used to think him very picturesque on the fringe of a
crowd holding a tall staff, with his erect form, and his superb, bare,
thick-hair'd, closely-cropt white head. The judges and young lawyers,
with whom he was ever a favorite, and the subject of respect, used to
call him Aristides. It was the general opinion among them that if manly
rectitude and the instincts of absolute justice remain'd vital anywhere
about New York City Hall, or Tammany, they were to be found in Col.
Fellows. He liked young men, and enjoy'd to leisurely talk with them
over a social glass of toddy, after his day's work, (he on these
occasions never drank but one glass,) and it was at reiterated meetings
of this kind in old Tammany's back parlor of those days, that he told
me much about Thomas Paine. At one of our interviews he gave me a minute
account of Paine's sickness and death. In short, from those talks, I
was and am satisfied that my old friend, with his mark'd advantages, had
mentally, morally and emotionally gauged the author of "Common Sense,"
and besides giving me a good portrait of his appearance and manners, had
taken the true measure of his interior character.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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