Bellows Falls times. [volume] (Bellows Falls, Vt.) 1856-1965, 1868-09-25
4Miscellamu.


The following is the concluding article
OF Mr.. Greeley's series of Recollections
of Busy Life" which, during the past
year, have been published in the columns
of the New York Ledger.
NO. LvI--(AND LAST. my DEAD.
81 do not wear my heart upon my
sleeve" and shrink from the intrusion of
matters purely personal upon an indiff.
erent public. have aimed, in the series
herewith closed, to narrate mainly such
facts and incidents as seemed likely to be
OF use, either in strengthening the young
and portionless for the battle of life, or
in commencing to their acceptance con-
victions which deem sound and impor-
tant. My life has been one of arduous,
intermitted labor-of efforts to achieve
other than personal ends-of efforts
which have absorbed most of the time
which others freely devote to social inter
course and to fireside enjoyments. OF
those | knew and loved in youth, ma
jority have already crossed the dark riv-
er, and / will not impose even their
names on an unsympathizing world.
Among them is my fellow-apprentice and
lifelong friend, who, after long illness,
died in this city in 1861; my first part
ner, already named, who was drowned
while bathing in 1882; and young poet
of promise who was slowly yielding to
consumption when the tidings of our Bull
Run disaster snapped short his thread of
life-as it would have snapped mine had
it been half as frail as his. The faces of
many among the departed, whom 1 have
known and loved come back to me as l
gaze adown the vista of my half centu-
ry of active life; but | have no right to
lift the vail which shrouds and shields
their long repose. will name but those
who are part of myself, and whose loss
to earth has profoundly affected my sub
sequent career.
Since | began to write these reminis-
censes, my mothers last surviving broth
er, John Woodburn, has deceased, aged
Y, leaving the old Woodburn homestead,
Understand, to some among his children
so has my fathers brother, Isaac, aged
so, leaving, so far as l know, but one of
the nine brothers (John) still living. My
father himself died on the 18th of De
oember last, aged SO. He had, for twelve
years or more, been mere wreck, first
in body only; but his infrmities ulti-
mately affected his mind so that, when
l last visited him, a year before his
death, he did not recognize me till after
he had sat by my side for full half
hour; and he had before asked my old
est sister, Did you ever know Henry
Greeley? ?"-alluding to one of her sons,
then several years dead. He had fitful
flashes of mental recovery; but he had
been SO long a helpless victim of hope
less bodily and mental decay that did
not grieve when learned that his spirit
had at length shaken off the incumbrance
of the mortal coil, which had ceased to
be an instrument, and remained purely
an obstruction. Of his protracted life,
AZ years had been spent in or on the
verge of New England, and A in his
deliberately chosen, steadily retained
Pennsylvania home.
My son, Arthur Young; {" Pickle y,
born in March, 1854, was the third OF
seven children, whereof son and daugh-
ter, severally born in 1888 and 1912,
scarcely opened their eyes to a world
which they entered but to leave. Physi-
cally, they were remarkable for their
striking resemblance in hair and features
to their father and mother respectively.
Arthur had points of similarity to each
of us, but with decided superiority, as
whole, to either. l looked in vair
through Italian galleries, two years aftel
he was taken from us, for any full para
lell to his dazzling beauty-a beauty no
physical merely, but visibly rudiatins
from the soul. His hair was of the fines
and richest gold; " the sunshine of pic
/
ture" never glorifed his equal; and th'
delicacy of his complexion at once fixet
the attention of observers like the lat
n. P. Willis, who had traversed boil
hemispheres without having his gaze ar
rested by any child who could bear ;
comparison with this one. Yet he wa
not one of those paragons sometimes me
with, whose idlest chatter would edify ;
Sunday school-who never do or sa.
aught that Propriety would not sanction
and Piety delight in-but thorough,
human, and endowed with love of pla..
and mischief which kept him busy ant
happy the lifelong day, while rendering
him the delight and admiration of al
around him. The arch delicacy where
with he inquiringly suggested, when ono
told a story that overtaxed his credulity