come
an honorary member of the republic, you are emancipated, compulsions
are not for you, nor any bugle-call but 'lights out.' You pay the
time-worn duty bills if you choose, or decline, if you prefer--and
without prejudice--for they are not legally collectable.

"The previous-engagement plea, which in forty years has cost you so
many twinges, you can lay aside forever; on this side of the grave
you will never need it again. If you shrink at thought of night,
and winter, and the late homecomings from the banquet and the lights
and laughter, through the deserted streets--a desolation which would
not remind you now, as for a generation it did, that your friends
are sleeping and you must creep in a-tiptoe and not disturb them,
but would only remind you that you need not tiptoe, you can never
disturb them more--if you shrink at the thought of these things you
need only reply, 'Your invitation honors me and pleases me because
you still keep me in your remembrance, but I am seventy; seventy,
and would nestle in the chimney-corner, and smoke my pipe, and read
my book, and take my rest, wishing you well in all affection, and
that when you, in your turn, shall arrive at Pier 70 you may step
aboard your waiting ship with a reconciled spirit, and lay your
course toward the sinking sun with a contented heart.'"

The tears that had been lying in wait were no longer kept back. If there
were any present who did not let them flow without shame, who did not
shout their applause from throats choked with sobs, they failed to
mention the fact later.

Many of his old friends, one after another, rose to tell their love for
him--Cable, Carnegie, Gilder, and the rest. Mr. Rogers did not speak,
nor the Reverend Twichell, but they sat at his special table. Aldrich
could not be there, but wrote a letter. A group of English authors,
including Alfred Austin, Barrie, Chesterton, Dobson, Doyle, Hardy,
Kipling, Lang, and others, joined in a cable. Helen Keller wrote:

"And you are seventy years old? Or is the report exaggerated, like
that of your death? I remember, when I saw you last, at the house
of dear Mr. Hutton, in Princeton, you said:

"'If a man is a pessimist before he is forty-eight, he knows too
much. If he is an optimist after he is forty-eight, he knows too
little.'

"Now we know you are an optimist, and nobody would dare to accuse one
on the 'seve