It was my great privilege
to be asked to say to him what all men were thinking, at a
great meeting in Boston. The large and beautiful hall was
thronged with a very small portion of his friends. If they
had all gathered, the City itself would have been thronged.
I am glad to associate my name with that of my beloved teacher
and friend by preserving here what I said. It is a feeble
and inadequate tribute.
The President of the United States spoke for the whole country
in the message which he sent:
WHITE HOUSE, WASHINGTON, Mar. 25, 1902.
_My dear Sen. Hoar:_ I very earnestly wish I could be at
the meeting over which you are to preside in honor of the
eightieth birthday of Edward Everett Hale. A classical allusion
or comparison is always very trite; but I suppose all of us
who have read the simpler classical books think of Timoleon
in his last days at Syracuse, loved and honored in his old
age by the fellow citizens in whose service he had spent the
strength of his best years, as one of the noblest and most
attractive figures in all history. Dr. Hale is just such
a figure now.
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