Perhaps the life now rounded and completed in its mortal development,
and which nothing can change or harm more, has its most illustrious
halo, not in its splendid intellectual or esthetic products, but as
forming in its entirety one of the few (alas! how few!) perfect and
flawless excuses for being, of the entire literary class.
We can say, as Abraham Lincoln at Gettysburg, It is not we who come to
consecrate the dead--we reverently come to receive, if so it may be,
some consecration to ourselves and daily work from him.
AT PRESENT WRITING--PERSONAL
_A letter to a German friend--extract_
_May 31, '82._--"From to-day I enter upon my 64th year. The paralysis
that first affected me nearly ten years ago, has since remain'd, with
varying course--seems to have settled quietly down, and will probably
continue. I easily tire, am very clumsy, cannot walk far; but my
spirits are first-rate. I go around in public almost every day--now
and then take long trips, by railroad or boat, hundreds of miles--live
largely in the open air--am sunburnt and stout, (weigh 190)--keep up
my activity and interest in life, people, progress, and the questions
of the day. About two-thirds of the time I am quite comfortable. What
mentality I ever had remains entirely unaffected; though physically
I am a half-paralytic, and likely to be so, long as I live. But the
principal object of my life seems to have been accomplish'd--I
have the most devoted and ardent of friends, and affectionate
relatives--and of enemies I really make no account.
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