[
597]
others.
Among deaths, while he was in
Europe, of friends with whom he had been more or less intimate, were those of
William Jay, Oct. 14, 1858;
Prescott, Jan. 28, 1859;
1 Horace Mann, Aug. 2, 1859;
2 Dr. G. Bailey of the ‘National Era,’ June 5, 1859;
3 and
Tocqueville, April 16, 1859.
Theodore Parker died in
Florence a few months later, May 10, 1860.
Sumner wrote to
Parker, Aug. 22, 1859:—
You will mourn Horace Mann.
He has done much; but I wish he had lived to enjoy the fruits of his noble toils.
He never should have left Massachusetts.
His last years would have been happier and more influential had he stayed at home.
His portrait ought to be in every public school in the State, and his statue in the State House.4 The aesthetic development of the people in pictures and statues he never appreciated; but these ought to do him honor for the impulse he has given to that civilization in which they will be sure to thrive at last.
I have a tender feeling for Choate.5 For years he was my neighbor in Court Street, and I never had from him anything but kindness.
The last time I saw him was in Winter Street. He asked me what my physicians in Europe said of my case.
I reported the opinion of Sir James Clark and George Combe.
“The voice of science itself,” said he; “you will be Mad not to follow it.”
His best powers were given to his profession; but I ask myself what single forensic effort he has left which will be remembered?
Not one!
Seward's defence of the negro Freeman is worth more for fame than the whole forensic life of Choate.
I heard Gladstone say lately in London that it was the “finest forensic effort in the English language.”
Sumner wrote to
Longfellow from
Montpellier, March 4, 1859:—
Yes, it was your letter which first told me of Prescott's death.
The next day I read it in the Paris papers.
Taillandier announced it at the opening of his lecture.
The current of grief and praise is everywhere unbroken.
Perhaps no man, so much in people's mouths, was ever the subject of so little unkindness.
How different his fate from that of others!
Something of that immunity which he enjoyed in life must be referred to his beautiful nature, in which enmity could not live.
This death touches me much.
You remember that my relations with him had for years been of peculiar intimacy.
Every return to Boston has always been consecrated by an evening with him. I am sad to think of my own personal loss.
There is a charm taken from Boston.
