The farmer and mechanic. [volume] (Raleigh, N.C.) 18??-19??, 1912-10-08

DR.. Furness said. there was silence:
then arose a confused shuffling soun
behind the screen; tn spirit OF Will
liam Shakespeare withdrew uncere-
moniously. even precipitably, and re-
fused to reJurn although earnestly
entreated TO do so. DIR. FurnesS' S
enjoyment Of the discontinue of the
S~Diritua1ists seemed to console him
Tor his failure to get the meaning OF
(1Iorxa.-Let me add. by the way,
that the difficult word has at last
been satisfactorily exp!ained-bur
that's another story.
NJ second recollection Of Or. Fur
ness is of another occasion on hich
mis- charming personality and his love
and absolute saturatiOn with Shakes
peare showed to fine advantage. At
Christmas, 1894, the Modern Ian
Suage Association of America, the Am
erlcan Pathological Association. and
one or two other earned bodies, held a
Joint meeting at the University Of
Pennsylvania, the urpo Of which
meeting was to make recognition Of
the life and work Of Professor w. D.
Whitney, Of Yale, Who had recently
died. The duty Of making the ad-
dress Of welcome to the combined
associations, containing many Of the
most illustrious scholars in America,
was assigned to Or. Furness as the
41oi VI IckLtiS III [ /
delphia. He performed his task
most surprisingly but thoroughly by
delivering as an address of fifteen
minutes an exquisite mosaic of gra-
clous passages of welcome and fitting
phra>e culled from Shakespeare.
The result was, as | say, charming:
but Of course, as Professor Bright
medlately afterwards: NO one but
Or. turness would have dared do
such a thing |, for one, shall never
forge mis- complete triumph.
TO know DR.. Furness,' writes a
friend, "one had to see him in his
library, surrounded by books among
which he had worked for forty years.
He had assembled a col
lection Of Shakespereana probably
unsurpassed in the world. on Ham
let alone there are more than our
hundred works. The same writer
He spoke Of the Baconian
theory, which he said was almost as
prevalent as the measles, and from
which most people recovered as soon.
with marked indignation he demanded
mat the conia should read the
Essay . Gardens and the fourth
act of The Winters Tale or the Es-
say 'Of Love and the third act Of
Romeo and Juliet" If they still be-
lleve the man who wrote those es-
says wrote those scenes, give them
up he said
At present our hearts are too fun
OF sauness TO permit a perfectly calm
eSufnate or Or. Furnessfs work. Per
maps my own words already within
VIII De considered extravaganza. Or.
rErness spoke OF himself too modest
~ as only a pair Of scissors" AS
a mere matter Of fact, he did dur
ing more than fifty years scholarly
work IN discovering and preserving
truth OF high value, of which we and
who come after us, will reap
the benefit. That this work was not
a nature to call forth the widest
and appreciation. that
only the comparatively small body
scholars and not the general
public applaud-this fact it seems to
me, gives the tremendous effort de-
voted to its performance an llv
character. DR.. Furness has
left to us a new standard for Ameri
can scholarship.
low man seeks a little thing
to do.
Sees it and does it:
This high man with a great thing n
pursue,
Dies ere he knows it.
Lofty designs must close in like eff
fects:
Softly lying.
Leave him still loftier than the world
suspects,
Living and dying"