The news of his mother’s death, which came to Mr. Clay a few days after his release from Fortress Monroe, fell upon him like a pall. I could not induce him to visit Washington, to which city powerful friends had invited him. He had but one wish; to return to his stricken father, far from the turbulent political centre, where a man’s life and honour were but as a pawn in the hands of the unscrupulous politicians of that day.
A few months and his father had passed away, gladdened, despite the vicissitudes of his later days, that his cherished son at last was restored to him. We laid the tired body beside that of the little mother. Together they sleep in the valley that smiles up so perennially to the crest of Monte Sano. A few years of effort for my sake, to retain an interest in the world which to his broken heart appeared so cruel and hollow, and my husband withdrew to our mountain home, sweet with the incense of the cedars; to his books and the contemplation of nature; to the companionship of the simple and the young. Yet a few more years, and he, too, fell wearily to sleep, and was put to rest beside those he had so well loved. I can think of no more fitting close to this portion of my memories than these brief quotations, from some of the hundreds of tributes which came from all quarters of the land, like the upwelling of healing springs in the desert, when at last I was left alone.
One who sat in the Senate Chamber in Washington, scanning a later generation of his fellows, all eager in the strife for the fame that is the guerdon of the true statesman, wrote thus of Mr. Clay, his predecessor:
“You knew him best, having proved him, by a long association in the sacred character of wife, in many years of trial filled with memorable vicissitudes, as a true and knightly gentleman, a devout Christian, a loyal husband and friend, a patriot of the sternest type, a statesman of great ability, and the devoted son of Alabama. In my course of thought and conduct, as his successor in the Senate, I have thought it well to accept his standard as that which would best help me worthily to represent our beloved State. Mr. Clay left a character here which stands greatly to the credit of the State, and will be quoted long after we have passed away, in proof of the character of the people he so worthily represented. His name and public history in the Senate are a cause of pride to our people.
“Your sincere friend,
“John T. Morgan.”
And one who had been our intimate friend for more than thirty years, Bishop Henry C. Lay, wrote of my dear one thus:
“How gentle and kind he was! How fond of young things, and how tender to the weak and helpless! Especially was he a singularly devoted husband, giving you his admiration and his confidence.... Life seemed very full of promise to him in those days. It was a sad change when the storm arose, with its exile, imprisonment, disappointed hopes, retirement into seclusion and inaction! Truly your life, with its opposite poles in Washington and Alabama, has been a varied one!”
The End