Retrospect of an Octogenarian

THE poet tells us, “ Heaven from all creatures hides the book of Fate ; ” and he includes among “ all creatures,” human beings and lambs, who sport till death ends their little day. But many things at the disposal of Fate, hidden from lambs, are disclosed, even if through veils, to human beings. True, there is only one positive certainty known as to any and every human life begun on the earth; that is, that it will have its close, “ the one event,” “ the inevitable hour.” But the length, the tenor, the experience, of life, though so varied in their conditions, are seemingly gathered under conceivable limitations of possibility. We may find, especially in elegiac poetry, both of youth and age, laments and benisons running through the whole scale of sentiment, on an early release from life and on protracted age. The poetry of life covers all the moods of rapture and of wailing. From the Lycidas to the In Memoriam we have all the strains of pathos and grief over shortened careers. Is lengthened life, with that “ which accompanies ” it, a privilege to be desired ? There is not in all literature a passage that will match the exquisite symbolism and the tender pathos of that delineation of old age drawn in the book of Ecclesiastes, xi. 1—7. So richly wrought in its figures of speech and in its emblems is that passage that many readers fail of the key to its interpretation.

It is accorded, however, as a privilege, to those who have had the full term of years, that they have seen in it the complete possibilities of life and experience. They have the whole before them. They have followed the play on the stage, with its “ seven ages,” through a thousand dramas. As what I here write is necessarily and pardonably egoistic, I will venture the avowal that I have found the last quarter of my present term, the Indian summer of my life ; though intervals of it have been clouded and saddened, solitariness is not loneliness. I prefer, like the Sun Dial, to number only the hours that are bright. Other people’s children are around me, and I love to observe in them the earliest ventures in the experiment. Carpe diem.

Like so many who lived before me, and have lived with me, amid the same scenes, surroundings, and privileges coming from birth and education in Boston, while my calling for more than half my life has been a professional one, my occupations and mental proclivities have extended beyond professional bounds. In that I have followed honored traditions and honored precedents. From the earliest days of Massachusetts, its clergymen, so called, — or ministers, as they called themselves, —have also been the chroniclers of its history and the promoters of all literary culture. It has never been a ground for censure, as for a neglect of sacred duty, that ministers have sought likewise to be scholars, helpers in any service to which education and a love of good learning prompt them. So I may say that my term of life has, in nearly equal parts, been professional and literary in its occupations. As is the bounden duty of every educated Bostonian, I have delivered “ orations.” On uncounted and unremembered occasions, of celebrations, commemorations, conventions, and dinners, I have answered to the call to “ offer a few remarks.” One “ oration,” however, I have evaded, that of the Fourth of July in Boston, though proffered to me by my esteemed friend Mayor Green. Even on this point I recall that I Compromised ; for when I was a trustee of the Asylum for the Insane at Somerville, I did consent to address the majority of the patients there gathered one Fourth of July for a garden party. I have many times emptied the inkstand, which I have used for more than fifty years, in painting with its contents countless sheets of fair paper. Close and critical study in books and manuscripts, research for certified information as to facts and opinions, and the varied interpretations of life, truth, and duty, have given me diligent and grateful employment in special fields. This employment of early years would find its full reward if only in resulting in an intense love and craving for reading, the richest resource and solace of age. But I confess that, increasing with my years, is a preference for miscellaneous and discursive reading, with wide tolerance for all the Babel utterances of our confused generation, — a confusion not merely of speech, as was that among the builders of the Tower, but of ideas, beliefs, and purposes. Wide and miscellaneous reading, especially in history and biography, offers the best compensation for the brevity of human life. It helps indefinitely to extend our term and enlarge our experience, by presenting to us those elements and impressions of thought and feeling we should have had if we had repeated our own existence in thousands of human lives for thousands of years.

One full year of life and travel in Europe has satisfied my inclinations in that direction. There has indeed been nothing in my lot or condition for a quarter of a century to hinder my making even an annual voyage. But I dislike to live in a trunk, a bureau, or a closet, and to sleep on a shelf. I also agree with the poet, that when one is favored in resources and daily companionships, “ wisdom and pleasure dwell at home.” But that one year abroad, while including the common privileges of roamers, had some special days and favors. Not many of my contemporaries have seen that most gorgeous of English observances, a royal coronation, with all its outside pageantry of parade, procession, equipages, representatives of place and dignity, and the inner old - time ceremonial of anointing with the holy oil in this case a girl of eighteen years as queen of the earth’s proudest nation. The scene in that whole week of shows, festivities, and merrymakings, which most pleasantly impressed me was that when, a few days after her coronation, the queen was driving in the park in an open carriage with her mother, some little children in the charge of their maids raised the cry “ God bless the queen ! ” she stood up in the carriage, and lovingly kissed her hand to them.

A fruitful theme for the fancies of essayists has offered itself in discussing the question as to what period in the history of the earth it would have been most exciting and interesting to have known through a span of eighty years. As we read history, neither its greatest epochs and crises nor its giants and heroes have been evenly distributed over the eras and cycles of time. Periods marked by startling convulsive and revolutionary events are interchanged with periods of comparative uniformity and calm. We assign certain eras as the occasions and opportunities for the appearance and activity of great men, either singly or in groups. It may be that the sun has photographed every scene and event on the earth on which it has ever looked, and has preserved the negatives for a future reckoneing. But no one who has lived through the last eighty years can lack any of his full share in the weightiest and most momentous movements in a cycle of ages.

There is no need of a summary here of this race in progress and triumphs, nor of the successive goals which it lias reached and passed. The common air is impregnated with the boast, including even the microbes and the bacilli. I count into my share of experience in this development the privilege of having personally witnessed, in the course of eight successive years, the initiation, the actual birth, of three of the most memorable feats of our age. I saw the first sun-pictures of Daguerre himself in his own camera in Paris, and in the same city the exhibition by Professor Morse of his magnetic telegraph before Louis Philippe and his cabinet; and I was present at the first successful trial of anæsthetics in the Massachusetts General Hospital in this grateful city.

To have lived through the period of a full manhood during the throes and horrors of our civil war, whether as a privilege or a discipline; to have marked the mutterings of threat and dread which prepared it; to have shared the anxieties and distresses of its course; and then to have watched the tentative measures for restoration and recuperation after the nation’s victory and salvation, was an experience which, though one might not have asked or wished for it, was burdened with an intense solemnity. The issue was not, as so many viewed it and proclaimed it, the simple alternative whether the Union should be peacefully severed or forcibly maintained. For the severance, however peacefully secured on political and civil terms, would have involved the most direful and protracted elements of a forcible struggle to maintain it. The severance would not have been as when one with a sharp diamondpoint draws a straight line through a sheet of glass, but as when the plate is shivered by a blow at the centre, with fractures, angles, and points of ruin covering its whole field. Where would have been the border line ? And what a pandemonium, what a hell upon earth, would have been the regions on either side of it! It was open and truthful for any Northerner to say, as many generously did say, that he would sustain the army for the Union if only to save the South from the follies and miseries of a fatal success. So while some, in the breathings of friendliness, said, “ Erring sisters, go in peace,” others, with the resoluteness of remonstrance, said to the South, “ Friend, do thyself no harm ! ”

All the marvelous development, strides, and triumphs, insuring what we call the steady advances of progress won by positive science in the years of this century, are altogether of secondary moment when viewed in comparison with the ventures of free and bold speculation, and the spirit of inquisitive, critical dealing with subjects that had been jealously reserved as sacred against the intrusions of free thought.

The conflict between the so-called “scientific spirit” and the “tlieologic spirit 1 has by no means first presented itself in our own time, for we trace its active workings in times long past. But as a matter of course it has been quickened into an earnest and vigorous strife by the secured triumphs of science in the present age. The scientific spirit assumes an air of boldness and confidence from its splendid achievements. It affirms not only that there is no subject of high concern to men on which it may not engage its methods and tests for the certification of truth, but also that an attempt to forbid the application of those methods and tests in any direction or on any subject of transcendent interest is a token of timidity, distrust, and of a shrinking from the searching scrutiny of the light. The scientific spirit is identified with the skeptical spirit. The conflict which has run through the ages between the physical, or “ natural,” and the “ spiritual,” as holding the secret of the universe for man, has been invigorated and vitalized by the triumphs of modern science. So the scientific spirit assumes a tone of boldness and confidence. But is there not a trace in the vivacious Essays of Huxley, especially, of a triumphant and even of a defiant and taunting tone against those who jealously guard what he and others call the theological field and realm and method ? He seems to say to them, “We men of science are now making reprisals on your own field for the ban which you have so long attached to free speculative inquiry about subjects over which you have claimed a ghostly guardianship.”The inference which he leaves us to draw as to his own personal attitude of mind is this : that most, if not all, the dogmatic beliefs of men, especially those drawn from Revelation, won their stupendous influence, and now hold their sway, under conditions very unlike those which guide the inquiries and assure the convictions of men; that they were the outgrowth of ignorance and superstition, received by an easy credulity without the scrutiny of testimony, and have been fondly and reverently passed down the ages enshrined in tender affections and associations. The intimation is that the severe processes of science are to undo and reverse the “ theologic ” process ; slowly, it may be, and against protests and struggles, but none the less in the end effectively. The conclusion in view is hardly a dubious one : that either in frank avowal, or in the implications of reserve and silence, a large number, in proportion unknown, of modern thinkers and writers, whose tone is boldest and freest, have committed themselves in full pupilage solely to the revealings of nature, observation, and experience, and have cast in their lot for time and eternity with that of our whole race, the votaries of all religions, philosophers, and sages, and the children of savagery and barbarism. This, in our day, is the full, bold challenge of science to the beliefs and reverences which have so long been the inheritance of Christendom. The panic which followed its first announcement has subsided. There is no question as to its effect in winnowing the chaff of ignorance and superstition that has mingled with the believings of men. But who can doubt that there is a limitation in the field and the subjects, within which the scientific spirit can wisely employ its methods ? The theologic spirit rightly maintains its prerogatives and its realm. The august mystery of existence, its beginnings and its consummation, are still veiled to us.

A span of eighty years of life is often said to be as brief in the retrospect as it is long in the prospect. But that depends upon the office of memory, its fidelity of impression and its activity in recalling. When memory is set to its full task and performs it, it makes the retrospect of the longest life elastic, and fills in the space of years with their full contents. There is a difference, however, between remembering and recollecting. It may be that by a scientific process, with instruments of ingenuity, precision, and consummate skill, there might be traced on the most traveled stone or brick thoroughfare the impression left by every footprint made upon it. So in the crowded chambers of the brain memory has stored its gatherings, and they are all there, subject to a recalling, however baffling may be the effort at any moment to recollect a special matter from its vast repository. Memory works more actively and faithfully by its own spontaneous recallings than in answer to our questionings of it. I once agreed with Dr. Holmes that we would not admit that we forgot anything, but had only more to remember with each passing year. If the office of a future retribution should be committed solely to the judicial workings of memory, its pangs and pleasures, its satisfactions and regrets, would be fairly awarded.

The wonder — sometimes, even, the awe — with which young persons look upon the aged would be increased rather than lessened, if the young could form any adequate conception of that long and infinitely varied succession of risks and perils which attend upon life from infancy onward, through diseases and accidents in every shape and form. Our way is through them, our lot is subject to them, and to survive them is indeed a marvel. It is observable, none the less, that of nearly all these risks and perils we are wholly unconscious, thoughtless, or unobservant. Our most vivid sense of perils is of those to which we have purposely or heedlessly exposed ourselves.

Some special perils of self-exposure, not of “providential “ necessity, which I recall as if I had not even now outlived them, I will here mention.

On a visit in the morning to the Giant’s Causeway, on the coast of Ireland, on a breezy day, I had in view, as I was bound for Scotland, to intercept in the afternoon a steamer that daily came out from Londonderry to go up the Clyde. The signal for leaving the Causeway was the sight of the steamer’s smoke over a point of land. I had engaged four wild Irishmen, in a rickety boat, to row me into the caves of the Causeway, and then to the steamer. The distance mentioned was a little more than half a mile, and the fee was to be four shillings. 1 was alone, my trunk with me, and no one known to me knew of my whereabout. As the breeze increased and the sea was roughened, the “ boss ” of the boatmen, on the plea that they would have to row out farther, demanded successive shillings in further payment, and I assented up to eight, but no more. One shilling down was asked as a pledge.

On receiving this the boss disappeared, and soon returned with a bottle of “the crathur,” preparing to pass it to his mates for a swig. Being already uncomfortably anxious in view of the risk before me, I snatched it from him, saying that not a drop should be had from it till they had left me on the steamer. So I embarked, holding my umbrella, with a white handkerchief attached as a signal, in one hand, and the bottle in the other.

As it was, the boat was nearly swamped, and I was drenched through under the paddle wheel of the steamer.

I recall, still with shudderings, another rash venture, when, during a sharp eruption of Vesuvius, I, with two young companions, against the warnings of our guide, crept up, through heated stones, scoria, and ashes, to the third, the innermost ridge around the mouth of the crater, and looked for a moment into its belching fires. The penalty was riding shoeless on my donkey all the way back to Naples. Again, when, after miles of subterraneous progress in the Mammoth Cave of Kentucky, I found myself in a boat to cross an underground stream by the light of the guide’s lantern, I felt that I had willfully taken myself out of the protection of Providence. And something of the same dread came over me from anxious experiences in Washington, at the close of Buchanan’s administration.

From the crowding memories of some more pleasurable scenes and incidents connected with memorable persons I select a few. Many of the contemporaries of Mr. Webster who happened never to have heard or seen him, though they might have done so, first realized the fullness of their deprivation in the exaltations of his grandeur after his death. It is generally admitted that he appeared in the complete grace and glory of his port and eloquence when he stood, himself monumental, to dedicate the shaft on Breed’s Hill. The completed monument was then the substitute for Lafayette’s presence at Webster’s address at the laying of the corner-stone. As I was at the time the minister of one of the churches in Charlestown, I was made chaplain for the superb occasion, enjoying many privileges and opportunities. President Tyler and his cabinet had come to Boston as guests, at the invitation of the city. Military, civic, Masonic, and other organizations, in mighty throngs, made a procession, for nearly three hours, in fine weather, through the streets with bannered and bedecked buildings. Mr. Webster modestly had place in the procession for only a part of the route, in order that the chief courtesies might centre undivided on the President. I was favored with a seat in an open carriage, with the President, Mr. Webster, and Secretary Upshur of the navy. Vivid impressions of the whole scene remain to me. Mr. Webster was elate, cheery, and even humorous in his full spirits. Tyler seemed still and reserved in his dignity. Among the variety of topics of chance remark, the President had referred to much public discussion then current as to disputing claimants to some discovery or invention. Mr. Webster, with much gravity, referred to and named some of the well-known cases of like rivalry. Then, still grave in look and tone, he specified the homeopathic theory of Hahnemann, — of “ like curing like,”— then warmly agitated in the community ; adding, “ Now, Hahnemann has appropriated the honor which properly belongs to quite another, — even the poet of my childhood, Mother Goose ” — repeating in full the lines, —

I have just been looking at a fine fulllength engraving of Mr. Webster as he stood upon the platform raised on the slope of the hill back of the monument, — a superb specimen, in majesty, grace, and dignity, in symmetry and poise, of our humanity. His garb was unique, and seemed to be left unimitated by others, as if fitting only to him. He spoke his strength and wisdom, his glowing patriotism and noble counsels, for two hours.

The procession, on its return, made rapid way to Faneuil Hall, where a rich banquet awaited the exhausted guests. And here, to explain an incident characteristic of Mr. Webster, I must state the condition enjoined by the city authorities that the banquet should be sumptuous, as it was, but without stimulants. A friend, a few days before, had suggested to me that Mr. Webster, before mounting the platform on the hill, and on leaving it, would need “ to be set up.” Precisely what was meant by that suggestion, and the means by which I complied with it, I leave to the reader. But he was “ set up.” My place at the platform table was between Webster and Upshur ; and as soon as we were seated, the latter, who had not been “ set up,” after looking anxiously over the table for certain objects which he missed, asked me, “ What are we to have to drink ? ” I replied, "Coffee, lemonade, and water.” Leaning in front of me, Upshur said, “ Webster, they are not going to give us anything to drink.” Webster, though “ set up” himself, taking in the situation, produced a bill, which he handed to a waiter, saying, “ Get me a bottle of brandy.” The waiter soon returned with it, and the cork drawn, Webster smelling at it pronounced it “ right,” courteously handing it first to me. Though, wearied, empty, and exhausted, I would have welcomed a few drops from it, I felt hound to decline. Upshur, on receiving the bottle, which he held under the table cover, mixed a glass with water, which he drank, and then, mixing another, set it upon the table, curling around it his bill of fare. Webster also mixed a glass, setting the bottle plainly on the table. Glancing at his side, and seeing Upshur’s disguised glass, he with thumb and finger snapped down the covering, saying, “ Upshur, show your colors.”

The next year the secretary was among the victims of the explosion of the trial gun in a steamer excursion on the Potomac. And Webster! In all the line of statesmen of the highest distinction for splendid patriotic service to our country, there has not been one who received from those to whose welfare he devoted his life such extremely contrasted returns of idolatrous homage yielding to obloquy and contempt. Let it not be forgotten that his course involved a question of motive, whether of ambition or of patriotism. That is only for “ the all-judging eye of Jove ” to interpret.

I have referred to the first trial of anæsthetics in the Massachusetts General Hospital. It may be that I am the only one who can relate an interesting incident in connection with that memorable event. The late Mr. Thomas Lee, of Boston, an eminent and prosperous merchant, was known, in his advanced and retired years, as of a most generous public spirit, a lover of flowers, and appreciative of various forms of benevolence : marked, however, by idiosyncrasies and preferences. His recognition of the inestimable and transcendent sum of blessings in relief and mercy for the human race from the new boon did not fall short of a tender devoutness in gratitude. He was proud that the glory of the triumphal test accrued to this city. He was moved to provide a fit memorial of it. I was privileged by a homelike intimacy with him, in friendship, kindnesses, and hospitality. He often gave expression to his intense appreciation of the appliance for stilling the throb of anguish.

I recall one day when, after I had dined at his table with him alone, he took up and opened a portfolio containing many etchings and written sheets, which his friends, at his request, had sent to him, including sketches, suggestions, and inscriptions for his projected memorial.

He asked me for another; but, thinking there were already enough of them, I silently concluded not to add to the number. He afterwards told me that be had sent the whole collection for examination, advice, and choice to that honored, learned, and versatile sage, Dr. Jacob Bigelow, who returned them with some selection and device of his own. This Mr. Lee next sent to that severely critical classical scholar, Mr. Charles Folsom, who, in his turn, found fault with the whole and all the parts. Mr. Lee used the vernacular strongly in expressing his impatience and vexation at the result, with a fling at scholarship, and said. I will choose for myself, in design and inscription.” The result is the symbol of the Good Samaritan, in the Public Garden, and the inscription, Neither shall there be any more pain. (Revelation.)

I had met, when in Florence, the venerated Dr. Charles Lowell with his wife and a daughter. I regarded him as the saintliest person whom I had known in Boston. He was then an invalid, and under a depression of spirits. Some weeks after I had reached Rome, he joined me there, about the middle of December, 1838. Two incidents in our intercourse, not without an amusing element in them, come to my memory. On the previous Sundays of Advent, I had attended the elaborate and stately observances in the Sistine Chapel of the Vatican, where the cardinals, an impressive company in dignity, mien, and array, with their pages, pay obeisance to the Pope. There are three sections of the chapel: the innermost one being the place for the holy service ; then, divided by an iron screen, one open only to men ; the outermost one being appropriated to women. I invited Dr. Lowell to accompany me there the first Sunday after his arrival. He did so, and was denied admission to the middle apartment. This was because of an oversight on my part. Missing his presence, I immediately went to his lodgings, and learned the reason: I had neglected to inform him of the strict requisition of full dress. He said the officer at the door took hold rebukingly of one of the skirts of his “ frock coat.” And the amusing part of the affair was in the good doctor’s telling me that it was the first and only garment of the kind he had ever had. Gentlemen in Boston had not as yet appeared in that garb. Clergymen especially would have objected to it. The doctor accounted for the offending garment thus. He had met in Nice his intimate Cambridge friends, Professor John and Mrs. Farrar. Coming to need a new article of outer clothing for approaching cold weather, he consulted the professor as to a tailor. His friend advised him to have, as he had done for the first time, a “ frock coat,” explaining that, in driving, much warmth would come from drawing the skirts over the knees.

The other incident had to do with his more famous son. I was in Holland on Commencement Day at Harvard in 1838. My regret at my absence was deepened because my brother, the late Dr. Rufus Ellis, was to carry the highest honors of his class. James Russell Lowell was of the class, but under discipline for neglect of studies, and forbidden to read in Cambridge a class poem which he had prepared. On one day of my time in Rome with Dr. Lowell, the mail had forwarded to me quite a number of letters from home, while the doctor had not one, adding to his usual depression. “ You must read me some of yours,” he said, which to some extent, from those known to both of us, I did. Among them was one from my brother, which, on glancing at its contents, I felt would greatly please my revered friend. It gave a full account of Commencement, and stated that the disappointed young poet had been invited to read his pages at a dinner of some of his classmates away from Cambridge. My brother had borrowed the manuscript and copied some of the pungent passages, which I read. Anything but gratified with the hearing, the doctor’s gravity deepened, and with a nervous earnestness he said : —

“ I do not like that. James promised me, before I left home, that he would give up his poetry and keep to his books.”

Being in Rome, it was natural that I should wish to be privileged with a personal interview with the Pope, then Gregory XVI., holding what still remained to him as Pontiff, more than to his present successor, of a sway and power which once hound together the monarehs and realms of Christendom. That power was then still mighty, trespassing by temporal sovereignty upon a province denied to his ministers by the Head of the Church, and now stripped wholly away from his assumed earthly vicegerent. Our consul, George W. Green, on application, procured the privilege of an interview for myself and three other young men, my traveling companions from England and New York. A day was assigned for it, which was December 15, 1838. it proved to be a costly enterprise, — the court costume, the handsome equipage, the fee to the consul in uniform, with chapeau and plume, and tips to some servitors. I find pages about the affair in my journal, but I cannot here transcribe them. The Pope, then seventy-three years of age, had filled his pontificate seven years. He had the repute of being profoundly ignorant of common worldly affairs. An English gentleman told me that his favorite topic of conversation with the English was railroads, then a novelty, and that he insisted that great rapidity of motion must injure respiration. He had strong prejudices against England, and a hearty regard for the United States, with whose citizens his favorite topic of discussion was the Canadas. He asked why the States did not interfere, free them, and take them into the confederacy ; seemingly oblivious of the two facts that the States had no right to intermeddle, and did not then think the Canadas worth taking.

My journal deals largely with description of five halls, or rooms, through which we successively passed to reach the Pope’s private apartment, and of the groups of attendants and officers of various functions and grades, servants, guards, priests, and nobles, rising in the richness and splendor of their array in robes and decorations till they reached the presence of his Holiness. I find that my attention was much engrossed by noting the singular combination and contrast of formalities, of etiquette, symbols, ornaments, and observances here brought together, a part of them distinctive of a court and military sovereignty, and a part of the spiritualities of ecclesiastieism. Indeed, the combination befitted the papal claims in both worlds. Crucifixes, paintings of saints and martyrdoms, crosses, breviaries, and rosaries put themselves beside knightly and military symbols and weapons.

The richly robed ecclesiastic and the caparisoned soldier were side by side. Laces, silks, epaulets, the plumed hat, the boot and spur and the sandal, the embroidered coat and sash, gold chains, gewgaws, and various trappings, strangely mingled the elements of humility and pride, the concomitants of worship and of courtly social display. At one moment you were saluted by a presentation of firearms, and the next by a muttered benediction. The private room of his Holiness had a canopied throne, a crucifix, and rich furniture. Our consul had drilled us as to the congees expected of us. We were to make three reverences, or bows, — one on entering the door., another midway in advance, and a very profound one as we faced the Pope. But the formalities seemed not to be needed, as they were anticipated by the simple demeanor and courtesy of the Pontiff, who came close to us as we formed a line, with the consul on the right. The conversation was in French, with each of us singly, for perhaps half an hour. The Pope was dressed in a white woolen robe bound with satin, with a small cape and sleeves, buttoned down to his feet, and a silk skullcap. And truth to say, he presented a most untidy appearance. His face, hands, and breast, and his robe all the way to his feet, were filthily stained with snuff, with which he plied himself during the interview. His nose was large, red, and swollen by disease. He was most easy and affable in his manners, a good-looking old gentleman, strong, stout, and benignant. He spoke most warmly of the United States, and appeared greatly pleased with the equal footing on which the Roman Catholics — then becoming numerous by immigration — stood with all religious communions, the way for progress and strength being thus left free to that fellowship which had the lead in zeal and piety.

For a brief interval I was placed in a somewhat embarrassing position. The

Pope having asked each of us as to his home, and it appearing that I alone came from Boston, he rather sharply put me to the question about something which seemed exceptional to his satisfaction as to his co-religionists in the States. He had been informed, of course imperfectly, of the destruction, by fire and a mob, of the Ursuline convent in Charlestown, four years before. He thought it was in Boston, and asked of me an explanation, while I thought my companions were enjoying my discomfiture. I told his Holiness that the occasion by no means indicated a general hostility of Boston Protestants to his communion. On the contrary, some of the liberal Protestants had generously aided in building the first Roman Catholic church in the town. There had been some grievance expressed that, in the planting of the Ursuline convent in the neighborhood, the name of one of the saints in his calendar had been substituted for the name which the hill had borne as one of the historic sites of the Revolutionary War; but that the school of the convent had many daughters of Protestant parents among its pupils, and that they esteemed it highly. The disaster began in the rumor that one or more of the Sisters had rushed out complaining of ill treatment in the convent. These rumors inflamed a mob-spirit, and as the civil authorities of the town failed in their duty or ability to deal with it, the outrage was madly perpetrated. The Pope listened kindly, and thanked me. He asked us how we enjoyed the sights of Rome, told us of a new planisphere in construction for him, related a strange story about the devil, and then, with a polite bow, closed the interview. By turning his back upon us as lie went to his table, he relieved us of all anxiety about our own “ backing out,” to which we had been instructed. So we followed our noses, as nature seems to have designed for us, and faced our way out, attended by obsequious menials. A few days later, one of tlie papal officials called at our lodgings, as was the usage, to collect — was it a gratuity or a due ? There was but one drawback for me to the pleasure of this incident. It was midwinter, and snow was visible on the surrounding hills. The only provision for warmth in the Pope’s apartment was by a bronze tripod, or brazier, filled with ignited charcoal, the fumes of which had been burned off in the Vatican gardens. For the first and the only time in my life I wore smallclothes, long silk stockings, and light pumps. Being chilled through,

I got as near as possible to the tripod, and ventured to stir the contents with the bronze rake provided.

It was about the middle of March that I saw, in his own camera, some of the first sun-pictures caught and exhibited by M. Daguerre, who thus gave his name to the results of the earliest experiments, the subsequent improvements on which have provided for us valued and marvelous treasures.

I was in Paris at nearly the same time with Professor Morse, when he exhibited and illustrated his magnetic telegraph for Louis Philippe and his cabinet for the purpose of procuring patronage for it. The telegraphic system then in use in France was the semaphoric, by fortified towers in sight of each other ; there being two lines, one to Strasburg, the other to Marseilles. They served for military and police purposes, hut of course, at night and in fogs, were unavailable. The fact comes back to me that, strangely enough, the French monarch seemed to have no thought of the uses of the wonderful invention for civil, peaceful, and commercial purposes ; for, while expressing his admiration of the appliances to Professor Morse, he added that they would be of no service to him, because wherever the wire passed, above or below ground, it might be so easily severed.

I have no space for any further reminiscences of experiences on the other side of the ocean. On this side of it they come to me in floods, filling the retrospect of years with incidents and events, surprises and catastrophes, known to me as of closer concern to others than to myself. I will recall one both of personal and of public interest.

I am moved to mention the fact that, on the fiftieth anniversary, in 1883, of my graduating from the college, when I was invited, as representing my class, to make a speech at the Commencement dinner, I had a most felicitous text for the occasion. My maternal ancestor in this country — and the late Francis Packman had the same progenitor — was the Rev. Nathaniel Rogers, of Ipswich, Mass., who, coming here in 1636, brought with him a young boy, who graduated from Harvard, among the stumps of the wilderness, in 1649, in his twentieth year. That boy was John Rogers. He became, in 1683, just two hundred years before I was speaking, the fifth president of the college, being the first of its graduates to become its head. The text which carried me through my speech was a charge of the bursar, or treasurer, of the college, as follows: “ Sir Rogers, Debitor by a pastor [pasture] for his Cow befor her appisall, 2s.” The explanation of which is that, in those days of small things in the wilderness, of frugality, not really of poverty, but of barter of commodities and "country pay ” without coin, the student drove a cow from his father’s farm, thirty-five miles distant, to cover his dues, being charged for her pasturage till he could he credited for her hide and carcass. Two hundred years had wrought vast changes in the college grounds, halls, and mode of life. In the same speech I was privileged to make the announcement of the intention of Mr. S. J. Bridge, my friend for nearly half a century, who died last year in his eighty-fiftlx year, to present to the college a bronze statue of its founder. He had already given to the city of Cambridge a statue of his ancestor, John Bridge, one of the earliest settlers and worthies of the town. The generous donor was a man of great business ability, honored for his probity and fidelity in important public trusts. Harvard bad given him an honorary A. M. in 1880. This good man, munificent and public-spirited, with his self-acquired means, had been a wide traveler, compassing the globe more than once, He had marked eccentricities, among which, in his long wanderings and voyagings, and having no woman to attend to his apparel, was untidiness, and even extreme shabbiness and seediness in his garb, from head gear even to his feet, He was a frequent visitor of mine, especially on the matter of the Harvard statue. About a fortnight before its unveiling, in 1884, when I was to deliver an address in Sanders Theatre, he presented himself before me, from mere carelessness in the matter, in such a dilapidated guise as to induce me to run a bold venture with him, founded on our long intimacy. Knowing that, on the occasion to which he was ardently looking forward, he would he a conspicuous object on the platform and the lawn for cheers and “ rahs ” from a grand concourse, I mildly made a suggestion.

“ Sam, you have been such a wanderer, without female oversight, that you have become neglectful of appearances, and you will be under sharp inspection. Let me take you up town for a wholly new rig.”He pleasantly replied, “It would be a good thing.” And it was.

Not melancholy to me, as so many report it to be to them, are the retrospections of a lengthened life. Vastly predominant over its sadnesses and disappointments have been its multiplied and varied satisfactions. I have been privileged, personally, professionally, and socially, with the favored fellowship of the wise and the excellent, the distinguished and the honored, of this century.

In twilight reveries, alone by my winter’s hearth, I musingly recall them as they pass illumined in shadowy outlines. More faithfully even than do the tablets on which the acidulated sunbeams have stamped their lineaments in photography does memory keep the impress of their full vitality, and even the intoning and cheer of their speech. Nor does any one appear in that shadowy procession whom I am not glad to see.

The longest retrospect closes with the opening of another prospect. I must not sermonize, but I may think aloud. It is natural that, with the extension of a life to what we call its completeness in lengthened years and the sum of its possibilities, the question should come how the aged, as a rule, — allowing largely for all individualities of experience, feeling, opinion, conviction, and belief,—gaze into the future, with desire, hope, belief, or doubt, as to a continued or renewed conscious existence. That acute and freeminded essayist, W. R. Greg, in his Enigmas of Life, deals delicately with the theme as to the varying phases of desire and expectation of “ immortality ” at different stages of human life. He pronounces the desire strongest in youth, with its keen and vivacious hope, its relished pleasures, with a thirst for felicity and knowledge to be slaked at no earthly fountain. The cares and turmoils of middle life, with its struggles and engrossing aims, preoccupy the whole activity of mind and heart, while the future is curtained off from thought. Then in the languor, exhaustion, and placidity of age there is less of confidence and desire thrown into the future. Tired, satiated, with loosening ties, and the shadings and limitations even of the highest successes and pleasures, there is a yearning for peace and rest. The condition most suggestive of these is Sleep.

I must not trespass here on the field reserved for the sanctities and assurances, the “sure and certain hope,” the “ comfortable faith ” for those of a peaceful trust and a sweet serenity of spirit; though even among those most devout and saintly in life whom I have known, whose belief in “ the glory yet to be revealed ” is most strong and radiant so as to yield “ open visions,” I recall none who would not have welcomed some assuring confirmation. The earnest questionings and credences of “ Spiritualism “ attest the wide craving for something beyond the affirmations of Holy Writ. Confining myself to the natural realm of experiences and belief among a class who have vastly increased in number and in free and frank utterance in recent years, I may say that, after much of confidential intimacy with aged persons in their infirmities and decay, I have inferred that the desire for and the belief in a future life are by no means so universally strong or clear as is the generally affirmed opinion. Rather is there an equilibrium of the mind and an acquiescence of spirit between the alternatives. Familiar enough to us are the cases in which the full belief is reduced, suspended, clouded, and even wholly yielded with disinclinations and disavowals. There rise in my professional recallings “ last utterances ” of three aged persons in their lingerings in life, varying in their furnishings, lot, and culture. All of them had been blameless, useful, and esteemed, each with his full share in the good and ill of existence, all serene and patient. “ I am waiting for what comes next,” said one of them. The words of the second were, "As to life here or anywhere, I have seen enough of it. I want no more.” The third, whose life work as a mechanic master-builder may he inferred from his reference to uses of the spirit-level and the plummet, said, as he lay on his last bed, “ Life seems very different as you look at it perpendicularly or horizontally,” — which means whether you are standing and moving in the world’s concourse and affairs, or alone, still and prostrate, for contemplation. I inferred that, for himself, he expected the “ horizontal position ” to be the permanent one for him. For myself, I may say that I still enjoy, in their turn, both the perpendicular and the horizontal position. I utterly repudiate the second sentiment, for I wish to see, and know, and have much more of life ; and I, in hearty accord with the first sentiment, am waiting to see — what comes next.

George E. Ellis.