“John G. Whittier.”
“Dear Sir:—I very much regret that I shall not be able to accept the invitation of the Young Men’s Congress for Friday evening of next week. At the same time I wish in heartiest sympathy to unite with them in honoring the memory of Bayard Taylor, whom I not only valued as a man of the highest intellectual qualities, but in whose loss I have to lament a dear friend. I beg you to convey to the committee of arrangements my deep sense of honor done me.
“Very truly yours,
“W. D. Howells.”
“My Dear Sir:—An illness which confines me to the house will prevent my being present at the meeting of the 19th instant. I regret the circumstance very deeply, as it pains me to be absent on any occasion in which the memory of Bayard Taylor is to be honored.
“Very sincerely yours,
“E. P. Whipple.”
“Gentlemen of the Committee of the Taylor Memorial:—An imperative duty calls me to a distant county of the State on the evening set apart for the meeting at Tremont Temple. But even if I were not obliged to be absent from our city on that night, I doubt if I should have the courage to be present and trust my voice with any words fitting to such an occasion. The departure of my dear Bayard Taylor is so recent, his loss so unexpected, that my lips could only falter out a few broken expressions of individual sorrow, and I should be wholly incapable of any adequate public tribute to his memory. So many years of exceptional and near relationship with him—a brotherly intercourse, unclouded from early manhood onward through his life—would incapacitate me from taking part before an audience assembled to honor his genius and his virtues, and I should probably be able only to stammer through tears an apology for my inability to speak his praises. These tender words by Halleck better convey my meaning:—
‘While memory bids me weep thee,