I remember one lovely June afternoon, which melted into a perfect moonlight evening. My little girls, attired in white, listened to the home music,—Roger, with his violin, accompanied by his mother on the piano my dear Aunt Mary had bequeathed to Gordon. A hasty ring at the door, a rush of eager steps, and Theo was in my arms! We thought him lovely. His father proudly marked his fine air and, with amusement, the delicate hint of a rising inflection in his voice. Never were people so glad and proud. Once more we were all together.
He decided not to return to England, although his masters at Cambridge wrote him assuring him that, although he "could not win a fellowship without becoming a naturalized British subject," yet he would "ultimately take an excellent degree." He entered the Columbia Law School, that he might fit himself to be his father's partner.
In October he was called to a higher court. One warm evening he walked out "to cool off before sleeping," and we never saw him more! The tides bore his beautiful body to us nine days after we lost him, and his beloved Alma Mater claimed it. There he lies in the section reserved for the presidents and professors of the University—side by side with the ashes of the Edwards and the Alexanders that await with him the great awakening. His classmates sent to Virginia for a shaft of granite, and upon this stone is inscribed: "In commemoration of his virtues, genius, and scholarship, and in enduring testimony of our love, this monument is erected by his classmates."
Of him a great future was expected. "He was," said one of the journals of the time, "one of the most gifted minds that Virginia ever produced. America probably had not his superior. Only twenty years at the time of his death, his powerful and mature intellect gave assurance of any position his ambition might covet. He was always first, and easily first, in any school, academy, or college that he entered. His powers were indeed marvellous. Proud of being a Virginian, his loss to the state, to the country indeed, is irreparable. In arms and in statesmanship Virginia has nothing to covet,—in letters a new field of glory awaits her. Pryor, foremost in that field, would have filled it with the lustre of his fame. Oh! what a loss, what a loss!"
There is a peculiar bitterness in the early blighting of such powers. But although the laurel was so soon snatched from his brow, he had already worked nobly and achieved greatly. He had done more in his short life than the most of us during a long life. Whether the end came through the hand of violence, or from accident, he could approach "the Great Secret" as did John Sterling, "without a thought of fear and with very much of hope." Such as he confirm our faith in immortality and make heaven lovelier to our thought.
He was a victim of his father's fallen fortunes. Now, surely, Nemesis must be satisfied! Innocent of crime, we had yet suffered full measure for the crime of the nation. Others had been called to give up their first-born sons. We had now given up ours! Was it not enough? All the joy of life was forever ended. Hereafter one bitter memory intensified every pang, poisoned every pleasure,—so clearly did our great bereavement seem to grow out of our misfortunes,—and all these to be the sequence of cruel, terrible, wicked war.
But why should I ask my readers to listen while I press, "like Philomel, my heart against a thorn!" We can change nothing in our lives. We must bear the lot ordained for us! We need not ask others to suffer with us! Grosse seelen dulden still!
The story I am telling must end not later than the year 1900—and I find no fitting place for a brief tribute to another brilliant son whom we lost after that year, unless my readers will forgive me for a word just here. I leave the splendid record of his services as a physician and surgeon, where it is safe to live—in the memories of his brethren at home and abroad. "Pryor's practice" is still quoted in England and France as the salvation of suffering womanhood. But other records are written on the hearts of the poor and humble. "Many a night," said one of his hospital confrères, "with the East River full of ice, and snow and sleet pelting straight in his face, Dr. William Pryor has crossed in a rowboat to see some poor waif at Blackwell's Island upon whom he had operated,—carrying with him some delicacy the hospital diet-sheet did not afford."
He was most richly endowed, physically and mentally, and he gave to suffering humanity all that God had given him.