630 JOHN CODMAN ROPES. 



the deformity was a very serious burden and prevented Ropes from 

 eneacriii'; in activities which would have been most cono-enial to him. I 

 might add that to those who loved him — and no one knew him who did 

 not — this malformation was simply non-existent. In sitting and talking 

 with him one never thought of him as different from other men. 



After leaving the Chauncy Hall School, Ropes was for a while under 

 the care of Dr. Buckmiuster Brown. He then resumed his studies under 

 Professor Goodwin, who acted as his private tutor and fitted him for 

 college. He was graduated at Harvard in 1857 and soon afterwards 

 entered the Law School, where he received his LL.B. in 1861. While 

 he was proficient in the work of the Law School, it is interesting to 

 observe that in that early time he also took a deep interest in questions 

 of philosophy and religion. He was always a man of profoundly reli- 

 gious nature, with all the strength and earnestness of Puritanism, but 

 without its ascetic features. In the year of his graduating at the Law 

 School he received the Bowdoin prize for an essay on " The Limits of 

 Religious Thought," — a title which strongly suggests that his mind had 

 been exercised by the famous book of Dean Mansel which we were all 

 then reading. For a short time Ropes studied in the office of Peleg 

 W. Chandler and George 0. Shattuck. He was admitted to the bar 

 November 28, 1861, and continued to practise law in Boston until the 

 time of his death. In 1865 he formed a partnership with John Chipman 

 Gray of the class of 1859 ; and thirteen years later W. C. Loring of the 

 class of 1872 was added to the firm, which has since been known as 

 Ropes, Gray and Loring. Ropes' professional work was almost entirely 

 confined to the office. Possibly his physical difficulty may have had 

 something to do with this. He had all the qualities which might have 

 placed him in the very highest ranks as an advocate before the court. 

 He had an almost infallible scent for the essential points in a case, he 

 could disentangle the most complicated details, he could hunt for evidence 

 with a kind of cosmic patience that took everything with the utmost 

 deliberation but never let slip the minutest detail, and he could marshal 

 his arguments with a logical power that was equalled only by the artistic 

 beauty of statement. To hear him argue any point was a genuine delight 

 both to one's reason and to one's aesthetic sense. With all these rare 

 endowments as an advocate. Ropes confined himself principally to busi- 

 ness that could be done in the office, especially to the care and manage- 

 ment of trust estates. At the time of his death there were more than 

 a hundred trust estates, large and small, in his hands. He had long ago 

 established his reputation as a safe person fur taking care of money. He 



