[410]
and white fleecy clouds.
The earth was green after a storm, and the distant sea blue as the heavens above; and it was impossible to resist the cheerful consolation which even Nature seemed to give.
Rev. James Reed, my old schoolfellow and college chum, who had known Stanley from the day he was a little child, spoke the last words at his grave; and so the short story of his life was ended.
I have designedly dwelt upon the pleasant things which then and now threw around the death of my brother an atmosphere almost of happiness, and certainly of peace.
He had lived faithful, and he died in his duty.
He is safe forever.
He never will be less good, less true-hearted, less loving than we knew him; and life is well over when it is a good life well ended.
I will now say something of the last three years of his life, and quote a little from notes found among his papers and from letters.
His cherished plan from boyhood up was to become an author.
I now have many manuscripts of his,—stories, plays, songs, and the like,—and it may be that among them there is something worth preservation.
For this purpose he went to College, carefully guarding from almost every one his secret.
This was his ulterior design in entering the
Regular Army.
In February, 1862, he writes:—
After the war ends, supposing I survive it, I should be stationed in some fort, probably, which would give me ample time to prosecute my plans in writing.
I should have a settled support outside of literature (an inestimable blessing to a litterateur), and should be admirably placed to get a good knowledge of character and affairs, so necessary to a writer in these days . . . . . My objects remain the same, and I shall always pursue them while I live; but the means of obtaining those objects I wish to seek in a different way from the one I had marked out for myself.
I must be a man, and fight this war through.
That is the immediate duty; but that accomplished,—as a few years at furthest must see it accomplished,—and I can honorably take up once more the plans I have temporarily abandoned.
It will be too late to return to college; and the army is the only place for me . . . . . When I shall have saved enough to support me, then I will resign, and give my whole time to my beloved plans, which in the mean time I shall not have been compelled wholly to neglect.
May I have such a fate before me, if I live!
Such a one as Winthrop, if, more happy, I should die!
