ompanied the body to the grave, had been
appointed to that service by the government of the city of Boston.

They represented respectively the Commonwealth, the City, the Supreme
Bench, the University, the American Academy, the Historical Society, the
Public Library, the Union Club, and the United States Army and Navy. The
officers of the Army and Navy highest in rank on this station
represented these services; the other organizations were represented, in
each case, by their highest officers.

The Governor received at the same time the following despatch:--

"It is impracticable for the President and the Cabinet to leave the
capital to attend the funeral.

"The President of the United States and the heads of departments tender
to the Commonwealth of Massachusetts their condolence on the lamented
death of Edward Everett, who was worthy to be enrolled among the noblest
of the nation's benefactors."

Why do you call that man a private citizen, to whom every officer in the
Nation, in the Commonwealth, and in the City, unites in paying homage?
Why do you select the leading man in every class of service to be
present to represent you at his open grave?

The true answer to these questions, and the true explanation of the
universal feeling expressed in public and in private when he died, are
not found without reference to some traits of moral constitution, to
which it is well, I believe, to call attention now. To those traits of
character,--as shown through life,--rather than to specific gifts of
intellectual power, is Mr. Everett's singularly varied success to be
ascribed. You may say, if you please, that it requires a very rare
mental genius and even very rare physical endowment to carry out the
behests of such resolution as I am to describe. This, of course, is
true. But unless you have the moral determination which compels your
vivid mind to plan, and your well-built machine to work for you, you get
no such life. The secret--if it is to be called such--of this wonderful
life, is the determination to do the special thing which at the moment
is to be done. Mr. Everett was no admirer of Carlyle. But long before
Carlyle began to tell men "to do the thing that came next them," Mr.
Everett had been doing it, with a steady confidence that he could do it.
Now the things that come next men in America are very various. That is
the reason why he has been doing very various things. That is the reason
why President and Cabinet, Na