BOOK V. AGE. 1830-1849. (continued 2)

1849.

These pamphlets were his last intellectual effort. As the year advanced, symptoms of decline became more and more evident. His memory began to fail. When alone, he caught himself talking in French as when a boy. His mind recurred much to his early youth, to Geneva, to his school, to Mlle. Pictet, and undoubtedly to that self-reproach for his neglect of her and of his family which seems to have weighed upon him throughout life. The Presidential election of 1848 was a great satisfaction to him; but he thought more frequently and naturally of his own past political contests and of the Presidents whom he had helped to make. His mind became more excitable as his strength declined. There was, however, little to be done or desired by him in the way of preparation; his life had left no traces to be erased, and his death would create no confusion and required no long or laborious forethought. He had felt a certain pride in his modest means; his avowed principle had been that a Secretary of the Treasury should not acquire wealth. He had no enemies to forgive. “‘I cannot charge myself with malignity of temper,’” he said; “‘indeed, I have been regarded as mild and amiable. But now, approaching the confines of the eternal world, I desire to examine myself with the utmost rigor to see whether I am in charity with all mankind. On this retrospect I cannot remember any adversary whom I have not forgiven, or to whom I have failed to make known my forgiveness, except one, and he is no longer living.’ Here he named a late eminent politician of Virginia”; doubtless William B. Giles.

During the last months of his life he turned with great earnestness to the promises and hopes of religion. His clergyman, Dr. Alexander, kept memoranda of his conversation on this subject. “I never was an infidel,” he said; “though I have had my doubts, and the habit of my thinking has been to push discoveries to their utmost consequences without fear.... I have always leaned towards Arminianism; but the points are very difficult. I am a bold speculator. Such has been the habit of my mind all my life long.”

He failed slowly as the winter of 1848-49 passed, and was for the most part confined to his room and his bed. In the month of May, 1849, while he thus lay helpless, his wife died in the adjoining room, leaving him deeply overcome and shaken by agitation and grief. Nevertheless, he survived to be taken, as the summer came on, to his daughter’s house at Astoria. There, on the 12th August, 1849, his life ended.