One of the pleasant effects of his illness was his new love for flowers. He had never shown any great pleasure in them during life, although a rose, or lily of the valley, was frequently in his vest during the summer. One day during his illness, Miss —— sent him a nosegay, in the centre of which was a white camellia japonica. “Ah! how beautiful!” he exclaimed; “tell her how much I am pleased; place them where I can see them. Tell her that the japonica is to me the emblem of her spotless heart.” Music, too, as it had been his delight in early life, now served to soothe his last hours. One evening, when surrounded by his family, and he was free from all pain, the door of the library was suddenly opened, and his favorite tune of Robin Adair was heard coming from some musical glasses in the entry. Its plaintiveness was always delightful to him: and after listening to it till it died away, he exclaimed, “O, how beautiful! I feel as if I should like to have the tune that I have loved in life prove my funeral dirge.”
HIS DEATH.
It was on the 15th of March, 1838, that, being too feeble to walk, he was drawn for the last time into the library. On the next day he was confined to the bed. On that day an incident took place which I cannot forbear to mention. He had called his daughter his Jessamine, and about twenty-four hours before his death she obtained for him that delicate white flower. He took it and kissed it many times. He then returned it with these words: “Take it, my love; it is beautiful; it is the queen of flowers. Let it be for you, forever, the emblem of truth and of purity. Let it be the Bowditch arms. Place it in your mother’s Bible, and by the side of La Place’s bust, and to-morrow, if I am alive, I will see it.”
In the evening he drew a little water into his parched mouth. “How delicious!” he murmured. “I have swallowed a drop from
‘Siloa’s brook, that flowed
Fast by the oracle of God.’”
On the morrow, 17th of March, 1838, he died. Had he lived nine days more, he would have exactly completed his sixty-fifth year. On the next Sabbath he was laid quietly by the side of his wife Mary. Snow-flakes fell gently upon the coffin as it was carried into Trinity Church vaults.
There both the bodies remained until a few years since, when they were removed to Mount Auburn.