n
the records of the college an ancestor of my own recorded as having
intended to give a piece of land. He remains there forever with his
beneficent intention. It is not certain that he didn't carry it out. The
land certainly never came to me, or I should make restitution. [Laughter
and applause.]

Consider, for example, William Pennoyer; how long ago would he have sunk
in the tenacious ooze of oblivion, not leaving rack nor even rumor of
himself behind. No portrait of him exists, and no living descendant, so
far as I know, and yet his name is familiar with all of us who are
familiar with the records of the college, and he always presents himself
to our imaginations in the gracious attitude of putting his hand into
his pocket. [Laughter.] And tell me, if you please, what widow of a
London alderman ever insured her life with so sure return or perdurable
interest as Madame Holden. Even the bodiless society, _pro propaganda
fide,_ is reincorporated forever in the perpetuity of our gratitude. It
is the genteelest of immortalities, as the auctioneer would call it, the
immortality of perfect seclusion.

The value of such an association as this as a spur to honorable exertion
is also, as it seems to me, no small part of its benefit. Leigh Hunt,
says, somewhere, that when he was writing an essay he always thought of
certain persons and said to himself, "A will like this, B will rub his
hands at that"; and it is safe to say that any graduate of this college
would prefer the suffrages of his brethren here to those of any other
public. And when any of the sons of Harvard who has done her honor and
his country upright service, meets us here on this day, it is not only a
fitting recognition, but a powerful incentive, that he receives in the
"Well done" of our plaudits. I had hoped that we should have heard
to-day the voice of one graduate of Harvard who sits almost immediately
upon my right. [Charles Francis Adams.] I will not press upon his
modesty, but I will ask you to bear witness once more that Peace hath
her victories, and more renowned than war [long continued applause]; and
honor with me those truly durable years of service and that of victory,
which if it hath not so loud an echo as that of the battle-field, will
be seen to have a longer one. [Renewed and loud applause.] It appears to
me that there is nothing more grateful to the human heart than this
appreciation of cultivated men. If it be not the echo of posterity, it