It flashed over me then that our sons beat out our brains in
the same way. They do not walk in our ruts of thought or begin exactly
where we leave off, but they have a new standpoint of their own."
The talk went on for about four hours, when the company broke up.
One evening the doctor came in after the Phi Beta Kappa dinner at
Cambridge. "I can't stop," he said. "I only came to read you my verses
which I gave at the dinner to-day: they made such a queer impression!
I didn't mean to go, but James Lowell was to preside, and sent me word
that I really must be there, so I just wrote these off, and here they
are. I don't know that I should have brought them in to read to you,
but Hoar declares they are the best I have ever done." After some
delay, and in the fading light of sunset reflected from the river, he
read the well-known verses "Bill and Joe." He must have been still
warm with the excitement of the first reading, for I can never forget
the tenderness with which he recited the lines. They are still
pleasant on the printed page, but to those who heard him they are
divested of the passion of affection with which they were written and
read.
Late in life he said to a friend who was speaking of the warm
friendships embalmed in his poetry, and which would help to make it
endure: "I don't know how that may be; but the writing of these poems
has been a passionate joy."
The following amusing note gives a picture of Dr.
Pages:
103
104
105
106
107
108
109
110
111
112
113
114
115
116
117
118
119
120
121
122
123
124
125
126
127