Page:Speeches, correspondence and political papers of Carl Schurz, Volume 5.djvu/63

Rh broke out in startling utterances. His likes and dislikes of persons and things seemed to spring from other than the ordinary motives governing those so young, and in his conduct there appeared something like a determined and conscious will-power entirely different from the freakishness common among little children. And with all this his whole being bore the charm of an extraordinary—I might say a strange loveliness. There was something in this boy that made older persons not only glad but proud to receive from him signs of friendship, and those who watched his way, as almost everybody did who saw him frequently, would often wonderingly ask themselves what such a development would bring forth, being sure that it would be something very, very extraordinary.

And now this lovely being is gone, never to come back, and we look into the dreary void he left behind him—gone like a sunbeam that made nature smile and gladdened the human heart, and then disappeared behind a cloud. A few minutes ago his father put into my hand some lines written by Emerson which seem to be meant for him: What such a loss is to father and mother and brother and sister only those can measure whose own lives have been darkened by similar bereavements. They know that there is no consolation in words. We can offer nothing