FOR THE LAST TIME.
Silence Dogood is an old man now—a very old man. He looks back on the spring and summer and autumn of life—it is now the time of the snow. But there are sunny days in winter, and they came to him, though on the trees hang the snow, and the nights are long and painful.
What has Silence Dogood done in his eighty years now ending in calm, in dreams and silence? Let us look back over the past with him now. What a review it is!
He had founded literary and scientific clubs in his early life that had made not idlers, but men. He had founded the first subscription library in America. It had multiplied, and in its many branches had become a national influence.
He made a stove that was a family luxury, and showed how it might be enjoyed without a smoky chimney.
He had shown that lightning was electricity and could be controlled, and had disarmed the thunder cloud by a simple rod.
He had founded the High School in Pennsylvania.
He had encouraged the raising of silk.
He had helped found the Philadelphia Hospital, and had founded the American Philosophical Society.
He had promoted the scheme for uniting the colonies.