Edward L. Pierce, Memoir and letters of Charles Sumner: volume 4

[541] arranged his visits to the libraries. W. W. Story, whom he plied with many questions of a technical character, was his companion on the visit to the Cesnola collection. Two American friends from Boston,—G. W. Smalley of the New York Tribune, and Henry T. Parker, a co-tenant of a suite of offices at No. 4 Court Street, twenty-five years before,—were assiduous in their attentions to him. He was very busy in the purchase of autographs and rare books, and frequented the shops of Pickering, Quaritch, and Ellis, buying here as in Paris rather lavishly than wisely, and only regretting when he left each place that he had not bought more, even at prices which repelled connoisseurs.¹ His purchases of this kind in London and Paris involved an outlay of $6,000.²

Mr. Story writes of him in these days of their last meeting with each other:—

Again I was enthralled by the old charm. I had now begun to think I was growing old, but to see Sumner again renewed my youth. He treated me as he did when I was twenty, and to his mind and thought I was still a youth. He so pleasantly patronized me that I was delighted and laughed into thorough good-will, and began to think I had still the world before me. He had the same pleased astonishment at all he saw that he had in his early manhood, the same stern and unflinching adherence to his friends.³ On one occasion when I was breakfasting with him at a friend's house, some bitter remarks were made against a common friend by an unthinking person at the table; at this Sumner fired up at once with a mixture of astonishment and indignation, denied the possibility of the facets stated, and appealed to me to support him, as I did with all my heart. On leaving the table and returning home with me, he expressed himself with great warmth, and declared that he would not let a day pass without informing himself at headquarters in respect to the whole case, so as to be able authoritatively to contradict such assertions; and this he did. He left; town when his time was crowded with engagements, sought out all the facts, and returned to me in triumph with a full refutation. That is what I call being a friend.

Every day of this visit gave him health and strength. Relieved from the toils of politics and the anxieties of public life, he bathed himself in literature, and grew stronger visibly. I urged him with all the arguments I could command to remain for the winter in England, or to go with me to Rome and wander over the old places. At one time I thought I had made an impression on him, but it was for a moment only. “I should like nothing better,” he said, “but I cannot, I ought not; tempt me no further.” I pressed the considerations