I soon found that two of my children were old enough to pine for
something more than physical comfort. They did not propose to live
by bread alone. The appealing eyes of our daughter Gordon were not
to be resisted and, as I have said, she entered the Packer Institute
with her little sisters, entering the senior class, where she soon
graduated with the first honors,—and where she nobly taught an advanced
class,—relinquishing at eighteen years of age all the pleasures to which
she was entitled. Theo, I supposed, would learn law in his father's
office. But he, too, like Goethe, craved "more light." One day as I was
returning from church he asked me, with suppressed feeling, if he was
ever to go to college.
I was smitten to the heart! When I repeated this to his father, he
declared, "He shall!" And within a few months a scholarship at Princeton
was found and promised, provided the boy could pass a creditable
entrance examination.
The little man went up alone early one morning to meet his fate. He
returned at night. "And did you enter?" we exclaimed. Very calmly he
answered: "They were very kind to me at Princeton. I was examined at
some length, and I shall enter the junior class."
When I packed his small trunk for his collegiate life, I found I had
little to put into it—little more than my tears! His first report read,
"In a class of eighty-three he stands first."
He maintained this standing for two years. The class included bearded
men who had been prepared thoroughly in the best preparatory schools.
Theo had received less than two years at Mr. Gordon McCabe's school.
All the rest of his time he had given to study, alone, and unassisted.
A day came in Petersburg when he, perceiving the necessities of his
family, had sold his beloved rifle for $40. Out of that sum he reserved
for himself $2, and returned home with a work on advanced mathematics
under his arm.
He was a _perfect_ boy. If he ever thought wrongly, I cannot tell—I
know he never did wrong. Personally, he was as beautiful as he was
good—clear-eyed, serene, with a grand air. "For the future of one of
my children," I was wont to say, "I have no fear. Theo will always
be fortunate." It was said of him by President McCosh that he was
"preternaturally gifted mentally." He always acquired knowledge with
perfect ease. He studied and read whatever his father studied or
read—politics, literature, and even military tactics. In the latter
he was so proficient that when a little lad in linen blouses, the
regiments at Smithfield would mount him on a stand and make him drill
the companies.
[Illustration: THEODORICK BLAND PRYOR.]
At the end of his collegiate life he wrote: "The professors have
been so good as to give me the first honor and also the mathematical
scholarship." This scholarship required him to study at least one
year in an English university. Accordingly, in the following autumn he
was sent, through President McCosh's advice, to St. Peters, Cambridge
University. He was just nineteen when he graduated.
He was too young and inexperienced to be a good manager, and soon
perceived that his $1000 would not carry him through his year. A prize
of a Cambridge scholarship and $40 was offered. He worked for it and
won it—binding wet towels around his tired brain as he worked.
I remember one lovely June afternoon, which melted into a perfect
moonlight evening. My little girls, attired in white, listened to the
home music,—Roger, with his violin, accompanied by his mother on the
piano my dear Aunt Mary had bequeathed to Gordon. A hasty ring at the
door, a rush of eager steps, and Theo was in my arms! We thought him
lovely. His father proudly marked his fine air and, with amusement, the
delicate hint of a rising inflection in his voice. Never were people so
glad and proud. Once more we were all together.
He decided not to return to England, although his masters at Cambridge
wrote him assuring him that, although he "could not win a fellowship
without becoming a naturalized British subject," yet he would
"ultimately take an excellent degree." He entered the Columbia Law
School, that he might fit himself to be his father's partner.
In October he was called to a higher court. One warm evening he walked
out "to cool off before sleeping," and we never saw him more!
The tides bore his beautiful body to us nine days after we lost him,
and his beloved Alma Mater claimed it. There he lies in the section
reserved for the presidents and professors of the University—side by
side with the ashes of the Edwards and the Alexanders that await with
him the great awakening. His classmates sent to Virginia for a shaft
of granite, and upon this stone is inscribed: "In commemoration of his
virtues, genius, and scholarship, and in enduring testimony of our love,
this monument is erected by his classmates."
Of him a great future was expected. "He was," said one of the journals
of the time, "one of the most gifted minds that Virginia ever produced.
America probably had not his superior. Only twenty years at the
time of his death, his powerful and mature intellect gave assurance
of any position his ambition might covet. He was always first, and
easily first, in any school, academy, or college that he entered. His
powers were indeed marvellous. Proud of being a Virginian, his loss
to the state, to the country indeed, is irreparable. In arms and in
statesmanship Virginia has nothing to covet,—in letters a new field of
glory awaits her. Pryor, foremost in that field, would have filled it
with the lustre of his fame. Oh! what a loss, what a loss!"
There is a peculiar bitterness in the early blighting of such powers.
But although the laurel was so soon snatched from his brow, he had
already worked nobly and achieved greatly. He had done more in his
short life than the most of us during a long life. Whether the end came
through the hand of violence, or from accident, he could approach "the
Great Secret" as did John Sterling, "without a thought of fear and with
very much of hope." Such as he confirm our faith in immortality and make
heaven lovelier to our thought.
He was a victim of his father's fallen fortunes. Now, surely, Nemesis
must be satisfied! Innocent of crime, we had yet suffered full measure
for the crime of the nation. Others had been called to give up their
first-born sons. We had now given up ours! Was it not enough? All the
joy of life was forever ended. Hereafter one bitter memory intensified
every pang, poisoned every pleasure,—so clearly did our great
bereavement seem to grow out of our misfortunes,—and all these to be
the sequence of cruel, terrible, wicked war.
But why should I ask my readers to listen while I press, "like Philomel,
my heart against a thorn!" We can change nothing in our lives. We must
bear the lot ordained for us! We need not ask others to suffer with us!
_Grosse seelen dulden still!_
* * * * *
The story I am telling must end not later than the year 1900—and I
find no fitting place for a brief tribute to another brilliant son whom
we lost after that year, unless my readers will forgive me for a word
just here. I leave the splendid record of his services as a physician
and surgeon, where it is safe to live—in the memories of his brethren
at home and abroad. "Pryor's practice" is still quoted in England and
France as the salvation of suffering womanhood. But other records are
written on the hearts of the poor and humble. "Many a night," said one
of his hospital confrères, "with the East River full of ice, and snow
and sleet pelting straight in his face, Dr. William Pryor has crossed
in a rowboat to see some poor waif at Blackwell's Island upon whom he
had operated,—carrying with him some delicacy the hospital diet-sheet
did not afford."
He was most richly endowed, physically and mentally, and he gave to
suffering humanity all that God had given him.
I resolved, when I consented to write this book, that I would not
intrude my own feelings and emotions upon those who are kind enough to
read my story. I know, alas, I am not the only one upon whom the tower
of Siloam has fallen. We are divinely forbidden to believe ourselves
more unworthy than those who escape such disaster.
"The Thorny Path," a painting by P. Stachiewicz, represents women
toiling along a perilous path. On one side is a high, barren rock; on
the other a ghastly precipice. Safety lies only in the narrow path,
uneven with slippery stones and thick-set with cruel thorns. Two women
are central figures in the procession: one, ragged and drunken and
cursing her lot, reels unsteadily against the flinty wall; another
treads the same path with bent head, and hands clasped in prayer.
A white "robe of righteousness" has descended upon the latter, and
celestial light surrounds her head, albeit the pilgrim feet are unshod
and torn with thorns.
[Illustration: WILLIAM RICE PRYOR.]
Sometimes a song or picture has taught us more than many sermons. When
Christine Nilsson, standing firm and erect with upward look, sang
"I KNOW," we were thrilled and surprised into a vivid faith, which
had burned with less fervor under the teaching of the pulpit. We had
believed, but now we felt that we _knew_, that the Redeemer lives and
will stand in the latter day upon the earth, and feeling this, we were
comforted.