He held in light esteem a friend who heard with half-believing ears the slander of a foe. He walked a highway of his own, and kept the company of his self-respect. He would not turn aside to avoid a foe—to greet or gain a friend.
In his nature there was no compromise. To him there were but two paths—the right and wrong. He was maligned, misrepresented and misunderstood—but he would not answer. He knew that character speaks louder far than any words. He was as silent then as he is now—and his silence, better than any form of speech, refuted every charge.
He was an American—proud of his country, that was and ever will be proud of him. He did not find perfection only in other lands. He did not grow small and shrunken, withered and apologetic, in the presence of those upon whom greatness had been thrust by chance. He could not be overawed by dukes or lords, nor flattered into vertebrate-less subserviency by the patronizing smiles of kings. In the midst of conventionalities he had the feeling of suffocation. He believed in the royalty of man, in the sovereignty of the citizen, and in the matchless greatness of this Republic.
He was of the classic mould—a figure from the antique world. He had the pose of the great statues—the pride and bearing of the intellectual Greek, of the conquering Roman, and he stood in the wide free air as though within his veins there flowed the blood of a hundred kings.
And as he lived he died. Proudly he entered the darkness—or the dawn—that we call death. Unshrinkingly he passed beyond our horizon, beyond the twilight's purple hills, beyond the utmost reach of human harm or help—to that vast realm of silence or of joy where the innumerable dwell, and he has left with us his wealth of thought and deed—the memory of a brave, imperious, honest man, who bowed alone to death.
A TRIBUTE TO RICHARD H. WHITING.
New York, May 24., 1888.
MY FRIENDS: The river of another life has reached the sea.