MRS. BOWDITCH.
Dr. Bowditch’s health had been generally good, though he never was robust. In 1808 he was dangerously ill with a cough, and by the advice of a physician, he took a journey in an open chaise. He was driven towards Pawtucket and Providence, thence in a westerly direction through Hartford and New Haven to Albany, and back again across the interior of Massachusetts, as far as the fertile valley of the Connecticut River. Thence passing upwards, he crossed on the southern borders of Vermont and New Hampshire to Newburyport, and back to Salem. This journey restored him, and he never afterwards suffered much from cough, and generally enjoyed good health until his last illness.
In 1834 his wife died. His heart was borne down by the loss. She had been to him always a loving and a tender companion, faithful and true even to the minutest points. She had watched all his labors. She had urged him onward in the pursuit of science, by telling him that she would find the means of meeting any expense by her own economy in her care of the family. She had watched the progress of his greatest work, which, with his dying hands, he afterwards dedicated to her memory. She had listened with delight to all the praises that had come to him from his own countrymen and from foreign lands; and now, when he was full of honor and yet active in business, she was called to leave him. With her the real charm of life departed, and many sad hours would have been the consequence, if his sense of duty and devotion to science had not prevented them. He attended now more closely to active engagements. He always spoke of his wife with extreme fondness, and sometimes his tears would flow in spite, apparently, of his efforts to restrain them. There was a degree of sadness, however, which was perceptible only to his family, that settled upon Dr. Bowditch during the last four years of life, in consequence of this deprivation.
LAST ILLNESS.
FAREWELL TO FRIENDS.
LOVE FOR HIS CHILDREN.
In the latter part of the summer and early days of autumn of 1837, he began to feel that he was losing strength, and had occasionally pains of great severity. He continued to attend to the duties of his office, however, without yielding to his suffering. In January, 1838, he submitted to medical advice; but it was of no avail. He sank rapidly under a severe and torturing disease, which, for the last fortnight of life, deprived him of the power of eating or even of drinking anything, except a small quantity of wine and water. Until the last moment of his life, he was engaged in attending to the duties of the Life Office, and to the publication of his Commentary on the “Mécanique Céleste.” During this time, after he lost the power of visiting State Street, he used to walk into his library, and there sit down among his beloved books, and pass the hours in gentle conversation with his friends, of each one of whom he seemed anxious to take a last farewell. He received them daily, in succession, during the forenoon; and towards those whom he loved particularly he showed his tenderness by kissing them when they met and when they parted. His conversation with them was of the most pleasant kind. He told them of his prospects of death, of his past life, and of his perfect calmness and reliance on God. He spoke to them of his love of moral worth. “Talents without goodness I care little for,” said he to one of them. With his children he was always inexpressibly affectionate. “Come, my dears,” said he, “I fear you will think me very foolish, but I cannot help telling you all how much I love you; for whenever any of you approach me, I feel as if I had a fountain of love, which gushes out upon you.” He spoke to them at the dead of the night, when he awoke, pleasant as a little child, yet with the bright, clear mind of a philosopher. He told them of his life, of his desire always to be innocent, to be active in every duty, and in the acquirement of knowledge, and then alluded to a motto that he had impressed upon his mind in early life, that a good man must have a happy death. On one of these occasions he said, “I feel now quiet and happy, and I think my life has been somewhat blameless.”
WORDS OF COMFORT.
It was noon, and all was quiet in his library. A bright ray of light streamed through the half-closed shutter. He was calm and free from pain. One of his children bade him good by for a time. Stretching out his hand and pointing to the sunlight, he said, “Good by, my son; the work is done; and if I knew I were to be gone when the sun sets in the west, I would say, ‘Thy will, O God, be done.’” Observing some around him weeping, while he was quiet, he quoted his favorite passage from Hafiz, one of the sweetest of the poets of Persia:—