642 WILLIAM SUMNER APPLETON. 



his last and longest visit to Europe, returning in June, 1889. 

 Most of the time was passed in Germany, France, England, 

 Belgium, Holland, and Italy ; and for two successive sum- 

 mers he resided in the little town of Pyrmont, once a noted 

 watering-place, in Germany, not far from Hanover, where he 

 spent one winter. A little more than two years after his 

 return, January 20, 1892, his wife died. The remainder of 

 his life was spent quietly, a part of each year in a new house 

 which he had built on Beacon Street, near Hereford Street, 

 and a part on his large and beautiful estate near Oak Hill, 

 Newton Centre. For a country life he acquired a genuine 

 taste, and often spoke of his reluctance to come into town. 

 He found a congenial occupation in cutting his own trees and 

 overseeing the routine of a farmer's life. 



In 1898 Mr. Appleton drew up a short paper which was 

 found after his death in an envelope marked " Autobio- 

 graphical Statement," and which begins as follows : " A short 

 memoir of my life must be written for several Societies to 

 which I belong, the most important perhaps being that for 

 the Massachusetts Historical Society. I hope that in that one 

 at least something may be printed to the following effect, be- 

 ing all that I care to leave in the form of an autobiographical 

 statement." This paper is so characteristic of the writer that 

 a biographer would find small excuse for not complying with 

 so plain an injunction. With one or two unimportant omis- 

 sions it is here given just as it was written: "It has been 

 my fortune, or misfortune, to be generally in the minority. I 

 have always belonged to a religious body which is small in 

 acknowledged numbers, even if it has been, as I think, of far 

 greater influence than mere figures would warrant ; and in 

 this body I seem at this date to be in a small minority, one 

 of those who adhere to old-fashioned, conservative, Christian 

 Unitarianism. I was an independent in politics long before 

 the mugwump was imagined, and almost never voted a straight 

 party ticket, but declined to allow my name to be brought be- 

 fore nominating conventions, republican and democratic. . . . 

 I have alone voted no in a meeting of my class at Harvard, and 



