Page:The poems of Edmund Clarence Stedman, 1908.djvu/30

BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCH Soon after the death of his wife Mr. Stedman moved back to New York. He took an apartment up-town and settled himself for the last time with his beloved books around him. Here, in spite of loss, ill health, and increasing age, he enjoyed life as only life's inveterate lovers may, and at the end the gods were kind. There came three or four days and nights of unusual well-being and high spirits. The evening before he died some of his near relatives dined with him and his infectious boyish gayety was the life of the occasion. The next day, after a morning devoted as usual to literary work, he called up an old friend over the telephone and demanded that he dine with him, on the plea that his dinner was to be an unusually good one that night. The invitation was accepted, and he made gleeful preparation for an evening of the reminiscent talk that was his favorite form of entertainment. In the middle of the afternoon he fell without a word. "Give me to die unwitting of the day," he had sung: his prayer was granted, and for him who had fenced with death so long and with such gay courage the end came with one swift stroke.