Produced by Eric Eldred, Charles Franks and
the Online Distributed Proofreading Team
[Illustration: CHARLES SUMNER]
1905
It has never been my practice to introduce myself to distinguishedpersons, or to attempt in any way to attract their attention, and I nowregret that I did not embrace some opportunities which occurred to me inearly life for doing so; but at the time I knew the men whom I havedescribed in the present volume I had no expectation that I should everwrite about them. My acquaintance with them, however, has served to giveme a more elevated idea of human nature than I otherwise might haveacquired in the ordinary course of mundane affairs, and it is with thehope of transmitting this impression to my readers that I publish thepresent account. Some of them have a world-wide celebrity, and others whowere distinguished in their own time seem likely now to be forgotten; butthey all deserve well of the republic of humanity and of the age in whichthey lived.
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Never before hast thou shone
So beautifully upon the Thebans;
O, eye of golden day:
—Antigone of Sophocles.
One bright morning in April, 1865, Hawthorne's son and the writer werecoming forth together from the further door-way of Stoughton Hall atHarvard College, when, as the last reverberations of the prayer-bell weresounding, a classmate called to us across the yard: "General Lee hassurrendered!" There was a busy hum of voices where the three converginglines of students met in front of Appleton Chapel, and when we enteredthe building there was President Hill seated in the recess between thetwo pulpits, and old Doctor Peabody at his desk, with his face beaminglike that of a saint in an old religious painting. His prayer wasexceptionally fervid and serious. He asked a blessing on the Americanpeople; on all those who had suffered from the war; on the government ofthe United States; and on our defeated enemies. When the short servicehad ended, Doctor Hill came forward and said: "It is not fitting that anycollege tasks or exercises should take place until another sun has arisenafter this glorious morning. Let us all celebrate this fortunate event."
On leaving the chapel we found that Flavius Josephus Cook, afterwardsRev. Joseph Cook of the Monday Lectureship, ha