“He had burst one or more blood-vessels, and the hæmorrhage was dreadful. Some time had to elapse before anything could be done; ultimately with the help of a friend who came in opportunely, poor Thomson was carried downstairs, and having been placed in a cab, was driven to the adjoining University Hospital. He did not die that night, nor when Marston and I went to see him in the ward next day was he perceptibly worse, but a few hours after our visit he passed away.
“Thus ended the saddest life with which I have ever come in contact—sadder even than that of Philip Marston, though his existence was oftentimes bitter enough to endure....”
The other death was that of Emerson, whose writings had been a potent influence in the life-thought of the young Scot from his college days. Indeed throughout his life Emerson’s Essays were a constant stimulus and refreshment. “My Bible,” as he called the Volume of Selected Essays, accompanied him in all his wanderings, and during the last weeks he spent in Sicily in 1905 he carefully studied it anew and annotated it copiously.
On hearing of Emerson’s death he wrote a poem in memoriam—“Sleepy Hollow”—which was printed in the Academy and afterward in his second volume of verse Earth’s Voices. According to Harper’s Weekly (3: 6: 1882) “No finer tribute has been rendered to Emerson’s memory than William Sharp’s beautiful poem ‘Sleepy Hollow.’ And, as Earth’s Voices is now out of print, I will quote it in full:
SLEEPY HOLLOW
In Memoriam: Ralph Waldo Emerson
He sleeps here the untroubled sleep
Who could not bear the noise and moil
Of public life, but far from toil
A happy reticence did keep.
With Nature only open, free:
Close by there rests the magic mind
Of him who took life’s thread to wind
And weave some poor soul’s mystery