Love stories; Success -- Fiction; United States -- Social life and customs -- Fiction; Youth -- Fiction
It was Fenton who most nearly voiced the public sorrow at the death of
Warrick Raridan. His address at the memorial meeting of the Clarkson Bar
Association surprised the community, which knew Fenton only as a
corporation lawyer who rarely made speeches, even to juries. Fenton put
into words the general appraisement of Warry Raridan--his social grace
and charm, his wit and variety. People who hardly knew that Raridan had
been a lawyer were surprised that the leader of the Clarkson bar dwelt
upon his instinctive grasp of legal questions, "the thoroughness of his
research and the clarity and force with which he presented legal
propositions." Raridan was a lawyer with an imagination, Fenton said,
thus seizing what had been considered a weakness of character and making
it count as an element of strength. Fenton was not given to careless
praise, and what he said of Raridan had much to do with formulating the
opinion that was to pass into Clarkson history. The last few months of
Warry's life had won him this eulogy--the work which he had done for
Evelyn. Fenton had learned to know him well after the appointment of
Saxton as receiver. He had thrown a number of important questions to
Warry to investigate, and he had been amazed at his young lieutenant's
capacity and industry. He did not know that a woman had been the
inspiration of this work; he thought that it proceeded from Saxton's
influence and the pleasure Warry found in labor that brought him near
his friend.
It was not alone Warry's death, but the sharp, tragic manner of it, so
wretchedly inconsonant with his life, that grieved and shocked the
community. But this too had its compensations; for many read into his
life now a recklessness and daring which it had lacked. They spoke of
him as though he had been a young soldier who had fallen at the first
skirmish, without having been tried in battle; all spoke of his promise
and mourned that his life had been harvested before he had finished
sowing. On every hand his good deeds were recounted; many unknown
witnesses rose to tell of acts of generosity and kindness which would
never have been disclosed in his lifetime. Those who had really known
him no longer lamented his erratic habits. They now magnified his
talents; and his whimsical, fanciful ways they attributed to genius.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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