Such a statement should be supplemented by what one of his family said of him: “The descriptions of his dress are greatly exaggerated; he was regardless of style and fashion, but all those who knew him best testified to the extreme neatness of his attire.”[53]
[CHAPTER VIII]
HIS LAST DAYS
The year 1831 was a sad one for Marshall. The greatest apprehensions were felt for his health. “Wirt,” says John Quincy Adams in his diary, on February 13, 1831, “spoke to me, also, in deep concern and alarm at the state of Chief Justice Marshall’s health.” In the autumn he went to Philadelphia to undergo the torture of the operation of lithotomy, before the days of ether. It was the last operation performed by the distinguished surgeon, Dr. Physick. Another eminent surgeon, who assisted him, Dr. Randall, has given an account of this occasion, in which he says:—
“It will be readily admitted that, in consequence of Judge Marshall’s very advanced age, the hazard attending the operation, however skillfully performed, was considerably increased. I consider it but an act of justice, due to the memory of that great and good man, to state that, in my opinion, his recovery was in a great degree owing to his extraordinary self-possession, and to the calm and philosophical views which he took of his case, and the various circumstances attending it.
“It fell to my lot to make the necessary preparations. In the discharge of this duty I visited him on the morning of the day fixed on for the operation, two hours previously to that at which it was to be performed. Upon entering his room I found him engaged in eating his breakfast. He received me with a pleasant smile upon his countenance, and said: ‘Well, doctor, you find me taking breakfast, and I assure you I have had a good one. I thought it very probable that this might be my last chance, and therefore I determined to enjoy it and eat heartily.’ I expressed the great pleasure which I felt at seeing him so cheerful, and said that I hoped all would soon be happily over. He replied to this that he did not feel the least anxiety or uneasiness respecting the operation or its results. He said that he had not the slightest desire to live, laboring under the sufferings to which he was then subjected; that he was perfectly ready to take all the chances of an operation, and he knew there were many against him; and that if he could be relieved by it he was willing to live out his appointed time, but if not, would rather die than hold existence accompanied with the pain and misery which he then endured.
“After he finished his breakfast I administered to him some medicine; he then inquired at what hour the operation would be performed. I mentioned the hour of eleven. He said, ‘Very well, do you wish me now for any other purpose, or may I lie down and go to sleep?’ I was a good deal surprised at this question, but told him that if he could sleep it would be very desirable. He immediately placed himself upon the bed, and fell into a profound sleep, and continued so until I was obliged to rouse him in order to undergo the operation. He exhibited the same fortitude, scarcely uttering a murmur, throughout the whole procedure, which, from the peculiar nature of his complaint, was necessarily tedious.”
From the patient over a thousand calculi were taken. He had a perfect recovery; nor did the disorder ever return.[54]
On Christmas Day of that year, as I have said, his wife died, the object of his tenderest affection ever since he had first seen her, more than fifty years before. The day before she died, she hung about his neck a locket with some of her hair. He wore it always, night and day; and, by his order, it was the last thing removed from his body when he died.[55]
It was at this period, in 1831 and 1832, that Inman’s fine portrait of him, now hanging in the rooms of the Law Association of Philadelphia, was painted, for the bar of that city. A replica which Marshall himself bought for his daughter, is on the walls of the state library in Richmond. This portrait is regarded as the best of those painted in his later life. Certainly it best answers the description of him by an English traveler, who, seeing him often in the spring of 1835, remarked that “the venerable dignity of his appearance would not suffer in comparison with that of the most respected and distinguished-looking peer in the British House of Lords.”[56]