On and off during those years also, when the family wanted a little change, they occupied "the little White House" at Lakewood. Cleveland liked it for its simplicity and because it was not unlike the parsonage at Caldwell, New Jersey, where he was born. Early in June, 1908, while the Clevelands were at Lakewood, the ex-President sent for my brother Isidor; he desired to have a talk with him. He seemed to wish to unburden his mind.
This proved to be the last time he spoke to any one outside of his immediate family while still in the possession of all his faculties. That very night he had another attack of his malady, after which, as I was told, his faculties seemed to go under a cloud. Two weeks later, on June 24th, the country was shocked, though it was not unprepared, to learn that the ex-President had died that morning at his Princeton home.
On June 26th Grover Cleveland was laid to rest. The funeral was private; my brothers and I had received a note from Mrs. Cleveland asking us to be present. At his home we met about one hundred of his personal friends. It had been his express wish that there be no eulogy or funeral oration, and his friend Dr. Henry van Dyke conducted a simple service at which he read passages from Wordsworth's poem, "The Happy Warrior." In a carriage with Chief Justice Fuller, Judge George Gray, of Delaware, and Governor Fort, of New Jersey, I accompanied the body to the cemetery.
For Grover Cleveland there were no longer enemies to traduce and vilify. Perhaps no President had ever been so reviled by a hostile press throughout the country as this great man, and, strong as he was, these attacks quite naturally pained him. Public appreciation of men who struggle against the tide for righteous things is often deferred, sometimes until after death. In his case, happily, it came while he was yet among us in the constantly increasing manifestations of admiration, love, and esteem by the people of the country.
I have mentioned that during Cleveland's second Administration I seldom went to Washington. At that time I was occupied also with the writing of two books. I was not, of course, relying upon my pen for a living. I should not have survived long if I had! Historical writing has fittingly been called the aristocracy of literature; it requires long and patient investigation and yields meager returns. For me it made a fascinating avocation. My "Roger Williams, the Pioneer of Religious Liberty," was published by the Century Company in 1894, and "The Development of Religious Liberty in the United States" appeared in a limited edition, published by Philip Cowen, New York, in 1896.
The latter was a slim volume, an amplification of an address I had delivered in New Haven before the Yale College Kent Club, and elsewhere; the former grew out of studies I had made in preparing my first book, "The Origin of Republican Form of Government." "Roger Williams" was well received and had a generous circulation, being several times reprinted. Brown University, under the presidency of that eminent historian and scholar, E. Benjamin Andrews, conferred upon me the honorary degree of Litt.D.
When I was again in London in 1898 I carried out a purpose I had long had, to visit Charterhouse School, earlier known as Sutton's Hospital School, where Roger Williams received his early education. I met the Reverend Doctor William Haig Brown, master, who showed me the register of the school for 1624 containing the inscription of Roger Williams. When he saw I was much interested in Roger Williams he told me of a recent life of him that had been written, which he considered very fine and with which he wanted to acquaint me. He went to his library on the floor above, and when he returned he handed me my own work! (I had not previously told him my name.)
I observed in the main hall of the school a number of tablets commemorating distinguished scholars who had attended there. There were represented Thackeray, General Shakespeare, Archdeacon Hale, Sir Henry Havelock, and several who were sacrificed in the Crimean War and the Indian Mutiny. I asked Dr. Brown whether he did not think it fitting that a tablet should be added in memory of Roger Williams, and said that I should be glad to defray the expense thereof. He agreed, and I authorized him to have the tablet made. He employed Howard Ince, a well-known architect, to design the tablet, which contains the following inscription: