SAMUEL DICKSON. 

 {Read December i, igi6.) 



I have been asked to present a paper commemorative of our late 

 associate, Samuel Dickson. It is hard to realize that he is dead. 

 We have seen him in this hall so often that his present appearance 

 in yonder doorway would not seem unnatural. Whenever he en- 

 tered our assembly all eyes turned towards him instinctively. His 

 tall form, his almost majestic mien, his white hair, his shaggy eye- 

 brows, his carefully trimmed beard and his air of distinction com- 

 pelled attention. I recall that when Nansen, the Arctic explorer, 

 was addressing us, it so happened that Mr. Dickson, Senator George 

 F. Edmunds and Admiral Melville sat side by side in the front row, 

 and as I looked at these leonine men I realized what the Gauls must 

 have felt when first they saw the Roman Senate. 



Mr. Dickson was a marked man intellectually. Whatever he 

 said, whatever he wrote attracted attention. Judge McPherson has 

 put it in the happiest way : 



" And who wrote better English ? Everything to which he set his pen 

 had a certain distinction about it, a crisp and vivid handHng, a happy turn of 

 phrase, the choice of the inevitable word. He possessed that indefinable 

 something we call the literary touch, the atmosphere of refinement, of abound- 

 ing knowledge, of quiet power, of balanced judgment, of unfailing good taste, 

 that can never be acquired as one acquires a mechanic art. ... It was a keen 

 pleasure to hear him talk even in the casual ease of familiar speech ; it was 

 a delight to read anything he took the trouble to write, for he wrote nothing 

 carelessly, but was at pains to leave his admirable stamp upon correspondence 

 and minute and formal address alike. We have all enjoyed and profited by 

 his too rare letters upon public questions, and were always sure that the 

 familiar (S. D.) at the end was a guaranty of thoughtful, lucid discussion, 

 always adorned by the grace of expression, and often illumined by the lam- 

 bent play of irony or humor." 



Mr. Patterson of the Pittsburgh bar, who has succeeded Mr. 

 Dickson as chairman of our State Board of Law Examiners, said 

 of him : 



XIV 



