WILLIAM DWIGHT WHITNEY. 587 



I never knew him to utter the slightest coniphiint about the calamity 

 which had uuex{)ectedly falleu upon him in the fulness of his strength. 

 He preserved the same cheerful composure which had characterized 

 iiim in the days of his health and vigor. He gradually and cautiously 

 took up much of the work which he had been obliged to lay aside. 

 He resumed his instruction in his special department, though his classes 

 were now obliged to meet him in his own home. In fact, not a single 

 •duty remained uufultilled which it was in his power to accomplish. 

 Moreover, he carried on to conclusion several undertakings in which 

 he had been concerned, and in a few instances projected others. In 

 particular, during those years he went through the necessary drudgery 

 of reading twice over all the proofs of the Century Dictionary, of which 

 he was editor in chief, and of carrying on a correspondence, which may 

 be fairly called immense, with its numerous sub-editors and contribu- 

 tors ; he revised his Sanscrit Grammar, originally published in 1879 ; 

 and when he died, he was at work upon the second volume of the 

 Atharva-Veda, containing commentary and ti'anslation, which had been 

 promised forty years before. As time went on, indeed, his health 

 seemed to improve. It is possible that renewed strength gave renewed 

 confidence, and that he was at last led to venture further than his frail 

 physical condition could endure. These are considerations which are 

 sure to present themselves to those who live to lament him. But it 

 was inevitable that the stroke should fall sooner or later, and against it 

 no precautions could long prevail. In the latter part of May, 1894, 

 his disease assumed an acute and painful form ; on the morning of 

 Thursday, the 7th of June, he died. 



Of the value of Whitney's services in the special fields of investiga- 

 tion to which he devoted his life, others can speak and have spoken 

 with an authority to which it would be presumption in me to lay the 

 slightest claim. Yet it is certain that down to the very close of his 

 career his eminence was undisputed. He lived long enough to see 

 the studies which he had been almost the first in this country to take 

 up pursued enthusiastically by hundreds. But the progress of their 

 investigations, the results of their researches, never once shook his 

 commanding position. To the younger linguistic scholars of the coun- 

 try he remained to the last the master. He was the friend to whom, 

 whether students of his or not, they came for advice and encouragement. 

 He was the leader to whom they looked for guidance. He had un- 

 doubtedly here his critics and opponents, but they were never found 

 among the men who stood highest in the department of study in 

 which he had been with us the great pioneer. They were almost 



