The days were fast approaching when the old things must pass away. He
wrote tenderly:--
"I am sorry to hear that you are not quite yourself. I sympathize with
you, for I am somebody else. It is the two W's, Work and Weather, that
are playing the mischief with us.... You must not open a book; you
must not even look at an inkstand. These are both contraband articles,
upon which we have to pay heavy duties. We cannot smuggle them in.
Nature's custom-house officers are too much on the alert."
In 1880 he again wrote, describing the wedding of the daughter of an
old friend:--
"A beautiful wedding it was; an ideal village wedding, in a pretty
church, and the Windmill Cottage of our friend resplendent with
autumnal flowers. In one of the rooms there was a tea-kettle hanging
on a crane in the fireplace.
"So begins a new household. But Miss Neilson's death has saddened me,
and yesterday Mrs. Horsford came with letters from Norway, giving
particulars of Ole Bull's last days, his death and burial. The account
was very touching. All Bergen's flags at half-mast; telegrams from the
King; funeral oration by Björnson. The dear old musician was carried
from his island to the mainland in a steamer, followed by a long line
of other steamers. No Viking ever had such a funeral."
And here the extracts from letters and journals must cease. It was a
golden sunset, in spite of the increasing infirmities which beset him;
for he could never lose his pleasure in making others happy, and only
during the few last days did he lose his own happiness among his books
and at his desk. The influence his presence gave out to others, of
calm good cheer and tenderness, made those who knew him feel that he
possessed, in larger measure than others, what Jean Paul Richter calls
"a heavenly unfathomableness which makes man godlike, and love toward
him infinite." Indeed, this "heavenly unfathomableness" was a strong
characteristic of his nature, and the gracious silence in which he
often dwelt gave a rare sense of song without words. Therefore,
perhaps on that day when we gathered around the form through which his
voice was never again to utter itself, and heard his own words
repeated upon the air saying, "Weep not, my friends! rather rejoice
with me. I shall not feel the pain, but shall be gone, and you shall
have another friend in heaven," it was impossible not to believe that
he was with us still, the central spirit, comforting and uplifting the
circle of those who were most dear to him.