"21 GRAMERCY PARK, NEW YORK, _Aug. 14, 1886_.
"VENERABLE AND DEAR SIR,--I am impatient to thank you for
your admirably just and graceful tribute to the memory of my friend,
the late Mr. Tilden.
"Though a prince of peace by training and self-discipline, Mr.
Tilden, like all men of large moral proportions, came not to bring
peace into the world, but the sword, and like all such men was much
misunderstood and misrepresented; in many cases by those who at
heart were entirely in sympathy with his aims. Of these latter, I
venture to think you have made yourself the faithful and acceptable
interpreter. You are right in thinking Mr. Tilden was ambitious, but
his was not the kind of ambition by which angels fell. He sought
power as a means, not as an end. To the mere pomp and circumstance
of official eminence, no man could be more indifferent. His ideal
of a State was a very exalted one, and he thought, in 1876, that he
needed the _pou sto_ of the Presidency to realize it. A majority
of his countrymen were apparently of the same opinion. It was
ordained, however, that he should never attain that eminence, as it
was ordained that Moses should never enter into the Promised Land.
If he ever murmured at his fate, it was as a citizen, and not as a
candidate; as a victim of a wrong to the Republic, not to himself.
He accumulated a large fortune in the prosecution of an honorable
profession; but in his professional, as in his political, career,
he was always accomplishing more for others than for himself. The
acquisition of his own fortune was but incidental to the enrichment
of a multitude.
"Had he been 'perfect,' he would, of course, have 'sold what he had,
and given it to the poor.' He was not perfect. But few, however,
have come much nearer to this divine standard than Mr. Tilden has
done, in consecrating the greater part of the fruits of a laborious
life to the welfare of his fellow creatures.
"Your verses encourage me to hope that death has lifted the veil
which concealed from the world many of my friend's virtues, and much
of his greatness.
"Respectfully and gratefully yours,
"JOHN BIGELOW."