[
482]
A single paragraph on the death of
George William Curtis, in 1892, a dear friend and associate of Brook Farm and the
Tribune, who had been estranged from him for years, is at once a touching example of his literary skill and of his generosity.
It is here inserted:
George Curtis lacked only two years of the Psalmists' period of threescore and ten; but his life was cast in pleasant places, and nothing but what was gentle, graceful, and poetic belonged to his career.
He was one of those fortunate creatures who seem never to be compelled to do anything which is contrary to their inclinations.
From his first appearance upon the stage of action, when he went to Brook Farm, in 1842, to the end at Staten Island, yesterday morning, he always maintained his own views of reform, and died as he lived, in the enjoyment of intellectual freedom and the culture of moral ideals, many of which the world has not yet learned to recognize.
Elevated in purpose, lovely in character, the most delightful of companions, the soul of truth, not a great constructive genius either in literature, in politics, or in reform, though he attempted all of them with distinction, his personal and social qualities were always pure and perfect; and those who knew him best will join with us in laying upon his grave the fairest flower of memory and of hope.
An instance of another kind, but scarcely less touching, is his tribute to
Samuel J. Randall, his political friend and fellow-Democrat, who died in 1890, and whom he had supported so strenuously for speaker of the House of Representatives.
Of him he wrote in part as follows:
... The history of Mr. Randall is narrated at some length in another part of this paper.
It is impossible to read it without admiration for the character of the man, or without envy for such grand and unvarying devotion to the highest conception of patriotic duty.
It is a most instructive and inspiring narrative.
Resolute, modest, free from vanity and from selfishness, no public man has ever lived up to a purer
