Page:Speeches, correspondence and political papers of Carl Schurz, Volume 5.djvu/356

332 their wants. It was the bright cheerfulness of the willing giver who could conceive no abuse of his generosity, who spared neither time nor pains, who let no business claims deter or disturb him, and who comforted and considered, thought and labored till the necessary aid was secured. How incredibly far that went, how great the number of those who looked upon Steinway as a kindly, never-failing support, how his labor of charity accumulated, sometimes till the whole capacity of an ordinary man would have been exhausted, that only his closest friends ever knew; and they hardly knew it at all. I have seen many men in my day, never a bigger heart. It is hard over this coffin so to speak the truth that it shall not seem exaggerated. Is it too much to say that in this man every human being has lost a brother?

He was the millionaire whom no one begrudged his riches. Nothing could reward more beautifully his good works than to have his noble example acknowledged by the rich of our day and to have the great lesson of his life understood and taken to heart in its full worth.

And what a friend and comrade he was. His inexhaustible sympathy, his loyal devotion, his childlike enthusiasm for the good and the beautiful, his joy in others' joy, his bubbling humor, his sunny cheerfulness—who that was near him has not been made happy and better by these qualities of his? He is a happy man who finds his happiness in the fortunes of others. So was he in truth one of the happiest of men.

And now, plucked away in the fulness of his energy, powers and strivings, he lies here before us dumb and still—in this hall in which he so loved to mingle with his friends, in which his voice so often rang out, in which he spent so many merry hours himself and made so merry for others. And here stand his children and relatives, bowed low by the blow of fate. Is it a comfort to them