t, and as they pass--his beloved oxen,
slowly, solemnly--what procession of the years passes with them! Years
of full living, of generous living; of deep emotions; of glory; years of
ambition; of bereavement; of grief. It is all to pass--these happy days
at Marshfield; the wife he so fondly cared for; the children he so
deeply cherished. Sycophants are to fill, in a measure, the place of
friends, the money which now flows in so freely is to entangle and
ensnare him; the lofty aspiration which now inspires him is to
degenerate into a presidential ambition which will eat into his soul.
But to-day let us, as long as we may, see him as he is in the height of
his powers. Let us walk with him under the trees which he planted. Those
large elms, gracefully silhouetted against the house, were placed there
with his own hands at the birth of his son Edward and his daughter
Julia, and he always refers to them gently as "brother" and "sister." To
plant a tree to mark an event was one of his picturesque customs--an
unconscious desire, perhaps, to project himself into the future. I am
quite sure, as we accompany him, he will expatiate on the improvement in
the soil which he has effected; that he will point out eagerly not only
the domestic but the wild animals about the place; and that he will
stand for a few moments on the high bluff overlooking the sea and the
marshes and let the wind blow through his dark hair. He is carefully
dressed--he always dresses to fit the occasion--and to-day, as he stands
in his long boots reaching to the knee and adorned with a tassel, his
bell-crowned beaver hat in his hand, and in his tight pantaloons and
well-cut coat--a magnificent specimen of virile manhood--the words of
Lanier, although written at a later date, and about marshes far more
lush than these New England ones, beat upon our ears:

[Illustration]

"Oh, what is abroad in the marsh and the terminal sea?
Somehow my soul seems suddenly free
From the weighing of fate and the sad discussion of sin,
By the length and the breadth and the sweep of the marshes of Glynn."

On the way back he will show us the place where three of his favorite
horses are buried, for he does not sell the old horses who have done him
good service, but has them buried "with the honors of war"--that is,
standing upright, with their halters and shoes on. Above one of them he
has placed the epitaph:

"Siste Viator!
Viator te major his sistit."