“Yes; nothing more proper.”
The word remorse was then written in pencil. He took the card in a hurried manner, and fastened his eyes on it with great intensity. “Write it on the back,” he exclaimed. It was so done and handed him again. He was extremely agitated.
“Remorse! you have no idea what it is; you can form no idea of it whatever; it has contributed to bring me to my present situation. But I have looked to the Lord Jesus Christ, and hope I have obtained pardon. Now let John take your pencil and draw a line under the word,” which was accordingly done.
“What am I to do with the card,” inquired the Doctor.
“Put it in your pocket, take care of it, and when I am dead, look at it.”
The dying man was propped up in the bed with pillows, nearly erect. Being extremely sensitive to cold, he had a blanket over his head and shoulders; and he directed John to place his hat on over the blanket, which aided in keeping it close to his head.
The scene was soon changed. Having disposed of that subject most deeply impressed on his heart, his keen, penetrating eye lost its expression, his powerful mind gave way, and his fading imagination began to wander amid scenes and with friends that he had left behind. In two hours the spirit took its flight, and all that was mortal of John Randolph of Roanoke was hushed in death. At a quarter before twelve o’clock, on the twenty-fourth day of June, 1833, aged sixty years, he breathed his last, in a chamber of the City Hotel, Philadelphia.
From the very necessities of the nature of an Eccentric, John Randolph could not be in harmony with the time in which he lived. But this difference was intensified into enmity by the irritable nature of his mind and the diseased condition of his body; nay, by his very virtues and genius. To increase the enmity and his own misfortune, he threw himself with ardor upon the losing side of an irrepressible conflict in government. I think posterity is better prepared to do him justice than were his contemporaries, for we have passed a settlement of the political conflict, and from pitying hearts can make full allowance for Randolph’s unhappy nature and unfortunate lot, while recognizing the purity, honesty and heroism of his character. Which of us would have been a better man in his situation?
