It is almost a proverb that a great man has not a great son. Bacon, Newton and Washington were childless. But, in Boston, Nature is more indulgent, and has given good sons to good sires, or at least continued merit in the same blood. The elder President Adams has to divide voices of fame with the younger President Adams. The elder Otis could hardly excel the popular eloquence of the younger Otis; and the Quincy of the Revolution seems compensated for the shortness of his bright career in the son who so long lingers among the last of those bright clouds,
“That on the steady breeze of honor sail
In long succession calm and beautiful.”
Here stands to-day as of yore our little city of the rocks; here let it stand forever, on the man-bearing granite of the North! Let her stand fast by herself! She has grown great. She is filled with strangers, but she can only prosper by adhering to her faith. Let every child that is born of her and every child of her adoption see to it to keep the name of Boston as clean as the sun; and in distant ages her motto shall be the prayer of millions on all the hills that gird the town, “As with our Fathers, so God be with us!” Sicut patribus, sit Deus nobis!
FOOTNOTES:
“Come dal fuoco il caldo, esser diviso,
Non puo’l bel dall’ eterno.”
Michel Angelo.
[As from fire heat cannot be separated,—neither can beauty from the eternal.]