Norwich bulletin., 1920-09-24

A Memoir To Jonathan Trumbull. which was presented by Rev. Dr. s. H. Howe, of Park Congregational church made the principal address at the annual meeting of the New London County Historical Society Wednesday afternoon at New London The meeting was held at the Shaw mausion.
 Of this. former president of the soci- ety, who was a lifelong resident of l Norwich ani who died here three years | ago at his home on Perkins avenue, | Rev. Dr. Howe presented the following | memoir.
 Mir President and Members of the
 New London County Historical Soci-
 ety: deeply appreciate the honor of your courteous invfeation to have part in this Commemorative Service to one of your honored members who has recently laid down his activities as member of your association. Especially as I am not an inheritor of these rich New England traditions which you make it your care to preserve and transmit. Some of us must be content to observe and study these traditions from without and to regret that we could not have chosen New England as our birthplace. There comes upon us this regret and sense of loneliness that we are not to the purple born.
 There is special propriety in such a service of Commemoration. This His torical Society honors itself in memorial izing this life. whose very name is sug- gestice of some of the richest of the New England traditions. Few New England names are so deeply cut into the com monwealth and the nation. To be we'll born may carry heavy responsibilities, but the advantages are great. It is to no mans disadvantage to have some good family portraits; to come in the succession of a notable guild of patriots and have our place made for us by dis 1 tinguished citizenry. To be well-born is an asset where it is worthily lived up | to. While 1t is highly discreditable to | dishoner family distinction it is doubly | credtable to transmit a great family | tradition.
 TrumbuIl's True Courtesy
 1 Mr .Trunbun did not trade on the fine | family inheritance or exploit the record | made by his predecessors as an asset to | be fiaupted in the eyes of others but there | was an atmosphere and bearing that 1 reminded you of inherited dignity and 1 assured you that the patrician blood ] flowed in his veins. No one who saw him move among his fellows and marked | his outward bearing, his fine and sus-
 tained courtesy. could fail of the i'm
 pression that something fine and distlnc- tive was holding over from the older and honored generations. And yet there was
 about him what the contemporary ob-
 server did not divine. There is about
 some men the undiscovered, the inartic ulate, the latent, the unknown quality. Many of his neighbors saw only th' 1 business man of high quality of rectitudt | and a a painstaking exactitude, or thu | public official grinding in the mills O
 routine and did not dream of the ricl
 wealth. of personality which could not b. 1 openly exploited before the general pub
 lie. He belonged to that guild of gifte' l souls that live their deepest life in sha
 dow; class whose hinterland is t casual observers undiscovered and to tn
 world unexplored. There are those wh
 retreat behind the veils of modesty an
 live their real life apart from the mad , ding crowd. Business aptitudes or of !. ficial fidelity inadequately defined thi i, man. They did not absorb him or ade . ouately describe him. He was not in tn
 1 dAepest sense known. He seemed out C . place among them. His affinities weT Y for other things and his palmary apt :, tudes and tastes were elsewhere place'
 He never came to his own in them. Ill
 interest in large questions suggested othc l, caliings and pursuits
 :, Interested in History and Literature 
 e His favorite engrossments were hi Y, torical and literary until we found ou l. selves saving a hundred times unlVer J ity chair better beftted him than bus 10 | ness career. A poets hand may be s the plough-handles while his heart " | with the Muse and ones native air is Il te Parnassus peaks while he breathes u le mists of the shaded valleys. Such liv l. are inarticulate lives and need to ia presented with bunch of keys that W sr let them out into wider and more spati " regions. We wish some one would sn; ae their chains and give them their congeni e. ether. We think of Burns chained T. the furrow when he ought to be at t B. summit of Parnassus and of Word n- worth tethered by an eXise commlssio Id ership while the Cumberland hills call
 him to eagle flights, and of Lamb toll1
 in the mills in a government oHiclaido a when he should have been free to Iote so the beckoning hand of his native genn H. and of Stedman shut up in banker CT fee when he should have been free to o- rich his countrys literature. And -' pc think of many like them who are limit eo bv callings into which can never flow 'le full gulf stream of life's strongest cl rent
 Absorbed in Secular Calling ,0 MT. Trumbull seemed to many to st absorbed in secular calling and olo T ha know that he found time to make III a1 self a historic student who could ha or spoken with authority on the most m IT. able eras of his country's life F pr men were in such complete mastery
 the history and literature of the Anne
 can Revolution or could write with gre ne CT fitness and clarity of thought and ~ tractive style than could he when lss subject was his native commonwealth lo- the stirring events of the Revolutions @1 period. He knew his subjects eXnau iyely. There were few men in whom lls revolutionary ideals were more deel pI inbedded. Heredity no doubt had mt
 to do with these tastes and aptltud liis It drove him to the study Of colonial ns Revolutionary history and set fast Fs: coiors which his inheritance hrous oi him. He admired the men who rocf
 the cradle of our great national life a = his character took on the type or u great life.
 Believed in America.
 He believed in the America of Wa \ inetor and Adams and Marshall and