Cambridge Sketches

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Title: Cambridge Sketches
Author: Frank Preston Stearns
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CAMBRIDGE SKETCHES
[Illustration: CHARLES SUMNER]
CAMBRIDGE SKETCHES
BY
FRANK PRESTON STEARNS
AUTHOR OF "TRUE REPUBLICANISM," "LIFE OF PRINCE
OTTO VON BISMARCK," "SKETCHES FROM CONCORD AND
APPLEDORE," ETC.
1905

PREFACE
It has never been my practice to introduce myself to distinguished
persons, or to attempt in any way to attract their attention, and I now
regret that I did not embrace some opportunities which occurred to me
in early life for doing so; but at the time I knew the men whom I have
described in the present volume I had no expectation that I should ever
write about them. My acquaintance with them, however, has served to
give me a more elevated idea of human nature than I otherwise might
have acquired in the ordinary course of mundane affairs, and it is with
the hope of transmitting this impression to my readers that I publish the
present account. Some of them have a world-wide celebrity, and others
who were distinguished in their own time seem likely now to be
forgotten; but they all deserve well of the republic of humanity and of
the age in which they lived.
THE EVERGREENS, JANUARY 4, 1905.

CONTENTS
* * * * *
THE CLOSE OF THE WAR
FRANCIS J. CHILD
LONGFELLOW
LOWELL
C. P. CRANCH
T. G. APPLETON
DOCTOR HOLMES
FRANK BIRD AND THE BIRD CLUB
SUMNER
CHEVALIER HOWE
THE WAR GOVERNOR
THE COLORED REGIMENTS
EMERSON'S TRIBUTE TO GEORGE L. STEARNS
ELIZUR WRIGHT
DR. W. T. G. MORTON
LEAVES FROM A ROMAN DIARY
CENTENNIAL CONTRIBUTIONS
* * * * *

THE CLOSE OF THE WAR
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
were coming forth together from the further door-way of Stoughton
Hall at Harvard College, when, as the last reverberations of the
prayer-bell were sounding, a classmate called to us across the yard:
"General Lee has surrendered!" There was a busy hum of voices where
the three converging lines of students met in front of Appleton Chapel,
and when we entered the building there was President Hill seated in the
recess between the two pulpits, and old Doctor Peabody at his desk,
with his face beaming like that of a saint in an old religious painting.
His prayer was exceptionally fervid and serious. He asked a blessing on
the American people; on all those who had suffered from the war; on
the government of the United States; and on our defeated enemies.

When the short service had ended, Doctor Hill came forward and said:
"It is not fitting that any college tasks or exercises should take place
until another sun has arisen after this glorious morning. Let us all
celebrate this fortunate event."
On leaving the chapel we found that Flavius Josephus Cook, afterwards
Rev. Joseph Cook of the Monday Lectureship, had collected the
members of the Christian Brethren about him, and they were all singing
a hymn of thanksgiving in a very vigorous manner.
There were some, however, who recollected on their way to breakfast
the sad procession that had passed through the college-yard six months
before,--the military funeral of James Russell Lowell's nephews, killed
in General Sheridan's victory at Cedar Run. There were no recent
graduates of Harvard more universally beloved than Charles and James
Lowell; and none of whom better things were expected. To Lowell
himself, who had no other children, except a daughter, they