asm which is the only true guiding-star of the
plodding lawyer.
The December blasts are hoarsely sobbing to-night through Mount Auburn,
the garden of his mortal repose--the hallowed spot which his eloquence
consecrated in its origin, and which his religious love in his lifetime
sacredly cherished. The snows of winter and the autumn-woven carpet of
fallen leaves are heaped upon his honored grave, the sodded paths to
which, in the glowing spring-time and fragrant summer, are pressed most
frequent with the tread of faithful mourners. Years have passed since that
honored grave was first closed upon him. Longer years have flown since we
were under his teachings. But we seem to view him the same as of yore.
Again the class is assembled in the hushed lecture-room as his familiar
tread is heard at the door; or as the burst of applause, where there is no
sycophantic flattery known or felt, greets his entrance to his seat. Again
we see him adjusting his genial spectacles, and looking around upon the
upturned faces with parental pride. Again we hear his mellowed, although
often impetuous accents, expounding familiar principles of law, and
descending to the consideration of "first things" with as much pride and
carefulness as the artist treats his Rubens or Titian, which for years and
years has hung before him in all lights and shades and in every
combination of position.
Again, we occupy a modest corner of the library while he is holding his
moot court; infusing into the dignity of his manner a marked suavity of
disposition which never forsook him; or he is perpetrating some
appropriate legal joke to his audience, who never played upon his ease or
good nature.
Again, we have stolen into the self-same library while he is holding an
equity term of his circuit, to listen to the words of judicial wisdom
which came from his utterance, exuberant as pearls of fancy from the mouth
of an inspired poet.
Again, we see him at the summer twilight, seated by the trellised portico
of his hospitable and happy homestead, surrounded by family or friends,
enjoying the amenities of life with unaffected pleasure, and sometimes
awakening the garden echoes with his cheerful ringing laugh; or we see him
in the same hour of the day driving under the venerable elms of the
numerous commons, gazing and bowing around with all the pleasure which the
king of the fairy book marked upon his face when the love of his subjects,
among whom he passed, came fo
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