Unless he really loved correspondence, as some men do, I believe, I cannot conceive that even so conscientious a man as he should have kept his correspondence in such perfect order, answered letters of every kind so faithfully, so fully, and so agreeably. The last day of his life, a sick man as he was, he seems to have written a dozen letters. Everybody had an answer, and a kind one. He was, I think, the last man living who courteously acknowledged printed documents. Certainly there is no one left to do so among men whose habits I have heard of. But he would not fail in any kindness or courtesy. At times his correspondence rose into a position of real dignity. Thus, after Fort Sumter, while we still carried the Rebels' mails for them, he wrote steadily through all his working-hours of every day to his Southern correspondents, who were sending him all sorts of Billingsgate. And he wrote them the truth. "It is the only way they see a word of truth," he said. "Look at that newspaper, and that, and that." Till the mails stopped, they had not to blame him, if they were benighted. I wish that series of letters might, even now, be published separately.
In such duties, coming next his hand, he spent a busy life. Every life has a dream, a plan, of what we are going to do, when we can do what we will. I think his was the preparation of his work on International Law. As I have said, it became his duty to study this as early as 1825. I remember hearing him speak of his plans regarding it in 1839. He set his work aside, most unwillingly, when, in face of his own first determination and the advice of his best friends, he became President of Harvard College. As soon as he was released from that position he turned to it again. During this last winter he had hoped to deliver at the Law School a course of lectures on the subject; and a part of these are certainly in form ready for delivery. But from this thread, or this dream, the demands of present duty have constantly called him away. He has done, from day to day, what had to be done, rather than what he wanted to do. A better record this, though men forget him to-morrow, than the fame of any Grotius even, if Grotius had not deserved like praise, better than the fame of any book-man of them all.
The brave man,—and he was a brave man, though in personal intercourse he was really shy,—the brave man, who, with all his might, and all God's strength assisting, will lend body and mind to such daily duty for other men, earns his laurels, when he wins them, in more fields than one or two. It is because Mr. Everett so lived, that in his death his memory receives such varied honors. He had served the Navy; the last interruption to his favorite study had been the devotion of the autumn months to the great charity which builds the Sailors' Home. He had served the Army, not merely by sending a son into it,—by "personal representatives," I know not how many, whose bounties he had paid,—but by the steady effort in all the charities for the wounded, and by the counsel, private as often as public, for which every department of the State turned to him. He had served the Union, all men know how. He had served the Bench, not simply as a student of the branch of law which he had chosen to illustrate, but in the steady training of the people to the sacredness of law. He had insisted on the higher education of the people; and so had fairly won the honors of the Academy, in those early days when men believed that there were Moral Sciences, and did not debase the name of Science by confining it to the mere chaff of things weighed and measured. His studies of History are remembered, for some special cause, in almost every Historical Society in the land. He had served the University in every station known to her constitution. He was in the service of the City in that Public Library of which he was, more than any man, the founder, which completes her system of universal education. He had served the State as her chief magistrate. And in every work of life he served the Nation as her first citizen. These varied lines of duty—in which "he neglected no branch, but did about equally well in all"—were fitly called to men's memories, as they saw the circle of distinguished friends and fellow-laborers who met around his grave.
FOOTNOTES:
[C] "For if one has anything worth writing, it is really worth while to write it so it can be read."—Address at Barre.
[D] In another scrap of his reminiscences, he says: "The oldest political event of which I have any recollection is that of the quasi French War of 1798. This I remember only in connection with the family talk of the price of flour, which it was said would cost twenty dollars a barrel. As we used principally brown bread, this was of less consequence; although the price of Indian corn and meal was probably increased also."
[E] Mr. Hedge, with whom this was a favorite passage.