Proceedings: In Respect to the Memory of William Hickling Prescott, February 1, 18591859 - 53 pages |
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Proceedings ... in Respect to the Memory of William Hickling Prescott Massachusetts Historical Society No preview available - 2016 |
Common terms and phrases
acquaintance addressed admiration affection American archives asso Athens beautiful bereavement BOSTON brilliant C. C. FELTON called character cheer Christendom co-extensive consolation cott DAVID SEARS dear death delighted departed detain the Society England eulogy Europe expressed fame father feel Ferdinand and Isabella friend and associate fully thrown open genius gentlemen Greece happiness heart highest historian honored immortal infirmity intellectual JAMES SAVAGE judgment knew known labors lamented friend language last tribute light literary literature living loss mark for transcription MASSACHUSETTS HISTORICAL SOCIETY materials memory merits mourn N. L. FROTHINGHAM name of Prescott never noble occasion passed Philip II Pres Prescott has become President regret REMARKS reputation resolutions respect Satis say any thing seemed Simancas sorrow Spain Spanish success sympathy thought Thucydides TICKNOR tion touch truth Tuscan minister unfinished utterance vate William H WILLIAM HICKLING PRESCOTT word writer youth δίδου δ
Popular passages
Page 5 - The busy day — the peaceful night, Unfelt, uncounted, glided by ; His frame was firm — his powers were bright, Though now his eightieth year was nigh. Then with no fiery throbbing pain, No cold gradations of decay, Death broke at once the vital chain, And freed his soul the nearest way.
Page 27 - the style is the man ; " and of no great author in the literature of the world is that saying more true than of him whose loss we mourn. For in the transparent simplicity and undimmed beauty and candor of his style were read the endearing qualities of his soul; so that his personal friends are found wherever literature is known, and the love for him is co-extensive with the world of letters, — not limited to those who speak our Anglo-Saxon mother-language, to the literature of which he has contributed...
Page 25 - ... own troubles, but curious and interested concerning an absence of several years in Europe which at that time I was about to commence. I found him, in fact, just as his mother afterwards described him to Dr. Frothingham, when she said: " I never in a single instance, groped my way across the apartment, to take my place at his side, that he did not salute me with some expression of good cheer, — not a single instance, — as if we were the patients, and his place were to comfort us.
Page 7 - ... prevalent sense of duty to God and love to man ; and that he has been taken from us with unimpaired faculties, and with a heart whose affections grew warmer and more tender to the last. At the end of a life like this, although suddenly terminated, he naturally left few wishes for posthumous fulfilment ; and the few that he did leave were of the simplest and most unpretending sort. But one was most characteristic and touching ; and, as it has been accomplished, it may fitly be mentioned here....
Page 11 - Truth was his first aim, as far as he could detect it in the conflicting records of events; and his next aim was to impress this truth, in its genuine colors, upon the reader. The characters and motives of men were weighed in the scales of justice, as they appeared to him after careful research and mature thought. In all these qualities of an accomplished historian, we may safely challenge for him a comparison with any other writer.
Page 5 - ... unaware that he himself both expected and desired. Inheriting a name which had been associated with the noblest patriotism in one generation, and with the highest judicial wisdom in another; and having imparted a fresh lustre to that name, and secured for it a title to an even wider and more enduring remembrance, — he was permitted to approach the close of his sixty-third year in the enjoyment of as much happiness, as much respect, as much affection, as could well accompany any human career....
Page 26 - True born, and nursed with all the sciences. She can so mould Rome, and her monuments, Within the liquid marble of her lines, That they shall stand fresh and miraculous, Even when they mix with innovating dust ; In her sweet streams shall our brave Roman spirits Chase, and swim after death, with their choice deeds Shining on their white shoulders...
Page 8 - ... his true and loving nature, which would have been dearer to his heart than all the intellectual triumphs of his life. "And now that all this is past; now that we have laid him beside the father whom he so truly reverenced — whom we...
Page 14 - Harvard, a classmate of Prescott, wrote of him, " I have never known one so little changed by the conventionalities of society and the hard trial of success and prosperity." This is indeed a trial of character. In meeting it and at the same time overcoming the handicap of practical blindness, Prescott put his inheritances of courage to a victorious test. So it is that his Life makes its strongest impression as a record of heroic struggle, a document in evidence of the...
Page 25 - In connection with this indomitable temper of Prescott's, with light-heartedness that never failed, may here be cited what his mother said, years after, to her pastor: " This is the very room where William was shut up for so many months in utter darkness. In all that trying season, when so much had to be endured, and our hearts were ready to fail us for fear, I never in a single instance groped my way across the Apartment to take my place at his side that he did not salute me with some hearty expression...