' To offset this, I had a telegram
from the Southern Forestry Congress assembled in Florida, signed by
president and secretary, informing me that 'In remembrance of your
birthday, we have planted a live-oak tree to your memory, which, like
the leaves of the tree, will be forever green.'"
Birthdays, on the whole, in the face of much sadness, brought him also
much that was agreeable and delightful in remembrance. One old friend
always gave him great pleasure by sending a huge basket of gilded
wicker, in which were placed fruits of every variety from all quarters
of the globe, and covered with rare flowers and ferns. In this way he
visited the gardens of the Orient, and could see in his imagination
the valleys of Napa and of Shiraz. On the occasion of a dinner given
him at the Brunswick Hotel, on his seventieth birthday, he wrote: "I
missed my friend. In the midst of so much congratulation, I do not
forget his earlier appreciation and encouragement, and every kind word
which assured and cheered me when the great public failed to recognize
me. I dare not tell thee, for fear of seeming to exaggerate, how much
his words have been to me."
Thus the long years and the long days passed on with scarcely
perceptible diminution of interest in the affairs of this world. "I am
sorry to find that the hard winter has destroyed some handsome spruces
I planted eight years ago," he wrote one May day; "they had grown to
be fine trees.
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