With great regard, very truly yours,
GEORGE WILLIAM CURTIS.
The following is from J. Evarts Greene, formerly editor of the Worcester Spy, and one of the ablest members of his profession in New England:
WORCESTER, Mar. 10, 1884.
My dear Mr. Hoar:
I want to thank you especially for the copy of the Memoir of your father, which I received to-day. I am exceedingly glad to have it on your account and his. He is the most venerable figure in my memory. He was always spoken of in our family with the highest respect, and few things have ever gratified me so much as his kindness to me on the occasion of my last visit to Concord during his lifetime. It was in 1850, I think, while I was in college and about fifteen years old. I had always held him in awe as the greatest and wisest man within my knowledge, and should have no more have thought of familiar conversation with him than with the Pope. But his grave and kindly courtesy, as he sat down with me after supper, though it did not quite put me at my ease, gave me courage to talk more freely than I had ever thought possible; and while my veneration for him was not diminished, I felt that there was no one now on earth that I need be afraid of.
Faithfully yours,
J. EVARTS GREENE.
The Hon. Geo. F. Hoar.
The following letter is from Professor Thatcher, the eminent
Latin Professor of Yale:
NEW HAVEN, 14th March, 1884.
HONORABLE GEORGE F. HOAR.
My dear Senator:
I write simply but cordially to thank you for the copy of your venerated Father's Memoir which you have been so kind as to send to your cousin, Elizabeth. I have read it with the delight which must be common to all who read it. A life so qualified with the selectest traits of a great and gentle soul, so substantial with continual but full and unembarrassed labor, and so constantly influential for elevated and beneficent ends, with nothing discoverable in it to check its great drift and power,—such a life is an almost unequalled gift of God to such a community as his. There is a rare charm in the narrative, and one cannot help rejoicing that you have been able to gather together the recorded judgments of so many men whose judgments are worthy to be recorded,