The road to Heaven, and showed it clear;
But thou, untaught, spring’st to the skies,
And leav’st thy teacher lingering here.
“Sweet seraph, I would learn of thee,
And hasten to partake thy bliss!
And, oh! to thy world welcome me,
As first I welcomed thee to this.”
But a still heavier bereavement was in store, though it was delayed for some years. In the summer of 1827 the health of Mrs. Webster began to fail, and from that time she steadily declined until on the 21st of January, in the following year she died. Of Mr. Webster’s bearing at the funeral, Mr. Ticknor writes: “Mr. Webster came to Mr. George Blake’s in Summer Street, where we saw him both before and after the funeral. He seemed completely broken-hearted. At the funeral, when, with Mr. Paige, I was making some arrangements for the ceremonies, we noticed that Mr. Webster was wearing shoes that were not fit for the wet walking of the day, and I went to him and asked him if he would not ride in one of the carriages. ‘No,’ he said, ‘my children and I must follow their mother to the grave on foot. I could swim to Charlestown.’ A few minutes afterwards he took Nelson and Daniel in either hand, and walked close to the hearse through the streets to the church in whose crypt the interment took place. It was a touching and solemn sight. He was excessively pale.”
It is a striking commentary upon the emptiness of human honors where the heart is concerned that this great affliction came very soon after Mr. Webster’s election to the United State Senate, where he achieved his highest fame and gathered his choicest laurels. We can well imagine that he carried a sad heart to the halls of legislation, and realized how poorly the world’s honors compensate the heart for the wounds of bereavement. But Daniel Webster was not a man to suffer sorrow to get the mastery of him. He labored the harder in the service of his country, and found in the discharge of duty his best consolation. If I had room I would like to quote the tribute of Judge Storey to the character of Mr. Webster. I confine myself to one sentence: “Few persons have been more deservedly or more universally beloved; few have possessed qualities more attractive, more valuable or more elevating.”
A little over a year later there was a fresh sorrow. Ezekiel Webster, the older brother, between whom and Daniel such warm and affectionate relations had always existed, died suddenly under striking circumstances. He was addressing a jury in the court-house at Concord, N. H., speaking with full force, when, without a moment’s warning, “he fell backward, without bending a joint, and, so far as appeared, was dead before his head reached the floor.”