the person attacked, so far as the scientific world is concerned — for
there the phrase can now only excite a smile-—but it may impair his
business of his public „standing, or, still worse, it may enter his domestic
circle, and wound him through his tenderest sympathies.
Was such the intention in the present case ? Charity bids us think
otherwise; and yet the attack has a very malignant appearance. To
Morton it occasioned great surprise and pain. He answered it calmly
in a paper in the same Journal, entitled Additional Observations, &c.
He is unwavering in the assertion of his opinion; and, inasmuch as
its triumphant establishment would he his own best justification, he
piles up still more and more evidence, often from the highest authorities
in Natural History. The personalities of Dr. I >. he meets and
refutes briefly, hut with firmness and dignity, declining entirely to
allow himself to be provoked into a bandying of epithets. His conduct
was in striking contrast with that of his reverend opponent;
and, while it exalted him in the estimation of the learned everywhere,
showed the latter to he a stranger to the courtesies that should
characterize scientific discussion. More of a theological polemic than
a naturalist, he uses the tone and style proverbially displayed by the
former, and is offensive accordingly. He has his punishment in
general condemnation and impaired scientific standing. In the
mean time, Morton was stimulated to a determination to exhaust
whatever material there was accessible in regard to Hybridity. Dr.
Bachman he dropped entirely after the second letter; but he announced
to his friends his intention of sending an .article regularly
foi each successive number of the Oharleston Journal, so long as new
matter presented. Two only of these supplementary communications
appeared, the last being dated January 31st, 1851.
But the solemn termination of all these labors was near at hand.
Never had Morton been so busy as in that spring of 1851. His professional
engagements had largely increased, and occupied most of
his time. His craniological investigations were prosecuted with unabated
zeal, and he had recently made important accessions to his
collection. He was actively engaged in the study of Archaeology,
Egyptian, Assyrian, and American, as collateral to his favorite subject.
His researches upon Hybridity cost him much labor, in his
extended comparison of authorities, and his industrious search for
facts bearing on the question. In addition to all this, he was occupied
with the preparation of his contribution to the work of Mr.
Schoolcraft, and of several minor papers. Most of these labors were
left incomplete. The fragments published in this volume will show
how his mind was engaged, and to what conclusions it tended at the
close. For it was now, in the midst of toil and usefulness, that he
was called away from us. Five days of illness — not considered
alarming at first—had scarcely prepared his friends for the sad event,
when it was announced, on the 15th of May, that Morton was no more!
It was too true — he had left vacant among us a place that cannot
soon be filled. Peacefully and calmly he had gone to his eternal rest,
having accomplished so much in his short space of life, and yet
leaving so much undone, that none but he could do as well!
go lived and so died our lamented friend. While we deplore his
loss, however, we cannot but perceive that few men have been more
blessed in life than he. His career was an eminently prosperous and
successful one. Very few have ever been so uniformly successful in
their enterprises. He established, with unusual rapidity, a widespread
scientific fame, upon the white radiance of which he has,
dying, left not a single blot. 'His life was also a fortunate and happy
one in its more private relations. His first great grief came upon
him, precisely a year before his own decease, in the loss of a beloved
son, to whom he was tenderly attached. No other cloud than this
obscured his clear horizon to the last. That he felt it deeply there
can be no doubt; but he had, at his heart’s core, the sentiment that
can rob sorrow of its bitterness, and death of its sting. To that sentiment
he has given utterance in these fines; and, with their quotation,
I conclude this notice, the preparation of which has been to me a
labor of love, and the solace, for a season, of a bed of suffering.
Jan. 1854. c o o o la h o » . » H- S- P -
What art thou, world! with thy beguiling dreams,
Thy banquets and carousals, pomp and pride!
What is thy gayest moment, when it teems
With pleasures won, or prospects yet untried ? ;
Whiat are thy honors, titles and renown,
Thy brightest pageant, and thy noblest sway ?
Alas! like flowers beneath the tempest’s frown,
They bloom at morn,—at eve they fade away!
A few short years revolve, and then no more
Can Memory rouse them from their resting-place;
The joys we courted, and the hopes we bore,
Have pass’d like shadows from our fond embrace.
But is there nought, amid the fearful doom,
That can outlast the wreck of mortal things ?
There is a spirit that does not consume,
But mounts o’er ruin with triumphant wings.
And thou, Religion! like a guardian star
Dost glitter in the firmament on high,
And lead’st us still, tho’ we have wander’d far,
To hopes that cheer, and joys that never die!
And if an erring pilgrim on his way
Casts but a pure, a suppliant glance to Heaven,
“ Fear not—benighted child”—he hears thee say—
“ For they are doubly blest that are forgiven! ”