I could not at any time while you were with me trust myself to speak of my father except in the coldest way. I want to write you but cannot write what I would.

As soon as I heard of the accident I went to Hartford by the first train; father tho’ in much pain, was apparently cheerful & confidant and able to converse with me quite freely. I was happily able to do a little for his comfort. The doctor then expected him to recover and during the following day, while I was in New York, my principle business was to contrive and obtain means [593] of rendering his bed-life as little irksome as possible. Harry’s first dispatch to me that day indicated that he was doing well, the second that he was failing. I was fortunately able to catch the 3 o’clock train after receivng it. When I arrived the doctor thought him better but his recovery was nevertheless hopeless. He was very restive, drugged with morphine and in much pain, but brightened up when I spoke to him, smiled and called me by name cheerily. He slept fitfully—a few moments at a time—woke always in much distress but was always able to recognize Harry & me and to speak distinctly and intelligently upon the slightest occasion—as we changed his position, shifted the pillows and gave him stimulating drinks. He said to me, “give me all the air you can,” five minutes before he died and I think had his perfect senses and knew his situation better than we did. I suspected that he was near death at that moment, however, and leaving him with the nurse ran out into the street and was fortunately able to make Harry hear me—who had started to go to the station for Mr Niles & Aunt Bertha. I persuaded him to return and mother & Mary who had lain down were called. The process of death was gentle and painless. Bertha who had been summoned by telegraph arrived half an hour too late.

This is a cold blooded narrative of occurrences which have stirred more emotion in me than I had supposed remained in my nature.

A month ago, my father, thinking that he might die suddenly gave me (with Harry) a full and detailed account of all his affairs and, with great care not to unduly restrict the freedom of our own judgement, suggested to us in what way we had better proceed in administering his estate and in dealing with certain family matters which had given him of late years much concern. We find in looking over his papers that he has acted, since, and before, as if any day might be his last, with a view to save us any trouble. He had paid every debt, except short tradesmen’s accounts for daily household supplies, balanced every account and left pencil memoranda of business which would need early attention. The day before his death, he advised Harry how to proceed with the least trouble about his funeral—though he then hoped he might recover. This was the cautious, provident habit of his life; the amiable, considerate habit also.

He spoke repeatedly and most gratefully of the material comforts of his old age. He did so to me privately when I was with him a month ago and referred to the last days of his old father, for whose comfort he had done all that was possible but then it was not possible to secure such comforts as (thro’ hot water, gas & steam pipes) were now at his command.

Again he said, referring to kind enquiries and expressions of sympathy & other attentions of friends, “It is very pleasant to an old man to find himself so much thought of.”

He was at bottom a very rarely meek, modest, affectionate and amiable man. He had also a strong sense of justice. He was very nervous, impulsive [594] and in a way ambitious but was crippled by a weak digestive apparatus, a very meagre & unsuitable education, and mainly by excessive shyness. Lacking the discipline, skill in self management and the training in manners of a liberal education, his shyness led him early to indulge in many expedients for avoiding the necessity of presenting himself to others in his true character. He easily accepted from others a position, objects and ambitions much below those for which his real character was adapted, and thus habits and manners became almost a second nature with him through which the direct reverse of his real character was manifested. Feeling it hopeless to present the true motive, conscious of a too confiding and indulgent and yielding impulse, he often stirred himself into an appearance of violence and opposition and in the effort to avoid an expression of his mind which he had no skill to make complete in truth, presented ideas and reasons, opinions & sentiments very different from those which really existed in his mind, and this with an appearance of excited earnestness. But no one who knew his life at all well can now look at his course in a broad and comprehensive way without recognizing how deeply meek and unselfishly considerate he was for the good of others, how generous, & with what intuitive sagacity he so shaped his course with his feeble body, nervous organization, poor education & shyness should make his whole life most helpful possible to others. Bishop Niles, as you know, has the strongest indisposition to see Christianity apart from his “church,” said of him, “I know of no man who, in the same circumstances, would have exercised equal Christian grace.”

You bear his name, my dear boy, as you do that of another, lovelier and dearer to me than even this dear father. You have, I hope, inherited much of his character. You are, I hope, training yourself to escape the weight of disability by which his life was confined, suppressed and crippled.

In examining the contents of my father’s private drawer I was gratified to find scraps of newspaper, running back twenty years, in which my books and works in parks and otherwise were honorably spoken of.

In his will my father leaves the homestead with a fair provision for maintenance to my mother; the rest in trust with Harry and me, to divide the income equally among his living children. He reckoned that in the final settlement it must give an income to each of about $1500. The larger part of the property is in loans secured by mortgages in Chicago improved real estate; other part in R. R. bonds and a little in manufacturing stocks. He had given his son John during his life time an equivalent portion of his estate, from which an income now comes of a little less than $1000 per annum, that is applied to our household and educational expenses, being under my control as guardian of his children. Of this I shall give you a fuller account when you come of age.

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