For many years it seemed that time stood still with the Autocrat. His happy home and his cheerful temper appeared to stay the hand of the destroyer. At last a long illness fell upon his wife; and after her death, when his only daughter, who had gone to keep her father's house, was suddenly taken from his side, the shadows of age gathered about him; then we learned that he was indeed an old man.
For the few years that remained to him before his summons came he accepted the lot of age with extraordinary good cheer. His hearing became very imperfect. "I remind myself sometimes," he said, "of those verses I wrote some years ago. I wonder if you would remember them! I called the poem 'The Archbishop and Gil Bias: A Modernized Version.'" He then repeated with great humor and pathos a few of the lines:—
"Can you read as once you used to? Well, the printing is so
bad,
No young folks' eyes can read it like the books that once we had.
Are you quite as quick of hearing? Please to say that once
again.
Don't I use plain words, your Reverence? Yes, I often use a
cane."
"As to my sight," he continued, "I have known for some years that I have cataracts slowly coming over my eyes; but they increase so very slowly that I often wonder which will win the race first—the cataracts or death."
He was most carefully watched over during the succeeding years of disability by his distinguished son and his daughter-in-law, of whose talent he was sincerely proud. Nevertheless, he suffered of necessity many lonely hours, in spite of all that devotion could do for him.
Such a wife and such a loving daughter could not pass from his side and find their places filled. But he did not "mope," as he wrote me one day, "I am too busy for that;" or, he might have said truthfully, too well sustained. His habit of carrying himself with an air of kindliness toward all, and of enjoyment in the opportunities still left him, was very beautiful and unusual. "If the Lord thinks it best for me to stay until I tumble to pieces, I'm willing—I'm willing," he said. He was always capable of amusing his friends on the subject, as in the former days when Old Age came and offered him "a cane, an eyeglass, a tippet, and a pair of overshoes. 'No; much obliged to you,' said I…. So I dressed myself up in a jaunty way, and walked out alone; got a fall, caught a cold, was laid up with lumbago, and had time to think over the whole matter."
Who that heard him can ever forget the exquisite reading of "The Last Leaf" at the Longfellow memorial meeting. The pathos of it was then understood for the first time. The poem had become an expression of his later self, and it was given with a personal significance which touched the hearts of all his hearers.
His wit has left the world sparkling with the shafts it has let fly on every side. They are taken up continually and sent out again both by those who heard him utter them and by those who repeat them, unmindful of their origin.
His attention was turned on some occasion to a young aspirant for artistic fame. He referred to the youthful person later as "one who performed a little on the lead pencil." He said to me one day, "I've sometimes made new words. In 'Elsie Venner' I made the word 'chrysocracy,' thinking it would take its place; but it didn't: 'plutocracy,' meaning the same thing, was adopted instead. Oddly enough, I had a letter from a man to-day, asking if I did not make the word 'anaesthesia,' which I certainly did."
In the sick-room he was always a welcome guest. A careful maid once asked if he minded climbing two flights of stairs to see his friend. "I laughed when she asked me," he said; "for I shall have to climb a good many more than that before I see the angels."