* * * * *
Among her noblest children his native city will cherish him, and
gratefully recall the unbending Puritan soul that dwelt in a form so
gracious and urbane. The plain house in which he lived--severely plain,
because the welfare of the suffering and the slave were preferred to
books and pictures and every fair device of art; the house to which the
north star led the trembling fugitive, and which the unfortunate and
friendless knew; the radiant figure passing swiftly through the streets,
plain as the house from which it came, regal with royalty beyond that of
kings; the ceaseless charity untold; the strong sustaining heart of
private friendship; the eloquence which, like the song of Orpheus, will
fade from living memory into a doubtful tale; that great scene of his
youth in Faneuil Hall; the surrender of ambition; the mighty agitation
and the mighty triumph with which his name is forever blended; the
consecration of a life hidden with God in sympathy with man--these, all
these, will live among your immortal traditions, heroic even in your
heroic story. But not yours alone! As years go by, and only the large
outlines of lofty American characters and careers remain, the wide
republic will confess the benediction of a life like this, and gladly
own that if with perfect faith and hope assured America would still
stand and "bid the distant generations hail," the inspiration of her
national life must be the sublime moral courage, the all-embracing
humanity, the spotless integrity, the absolutely unselfish, devotion of
great powers to great public ends, which were the glory of Wendell
Phillips. GEORGE WILLIAM CURTIS.