JACOB BIGELOW. 341 



irist than he : not only did lie refrain from the use of poisoned shafts, 

 but he kept his arrows so carefully in their quiver that oiiJy a friend, 

 who was privileged to feel their points now and then, knew how sharp 

 they were, and how dangerous they might be. His parodies were 

 ingenious, with no venomous stinging about them. Consequently he 

 made no enemies. He kept his wit perfectly in hand, and never let it 

 betray him into personalities, — at least after his college days, when 

 he indulged in an excursus or two which showed what a formidable 

 weapon his ridicule could be, if he chose to wield it. 



I was in the habit of visiting Dr. Bigelovv from time to time long 

 after the period at which the strength of our days was said of old to 

 be labor and sorrow. But my visits were cheerful, except for the 

 sight of the once strong man now blind and helpless in the bed from 

 which he was never to rise. He smiled a welcome as always, laughed 

 on occasion almost as heartily as ever, spoke of his remarkable freedom 

 from all pain and discomfort, and wore on his features the look of 

 serene repose. 



I will close my sketch by repeating a few words from my remarks 

 at a meeting of the Massachusetts Historical Society, where I was 

 called to speak informally, at one of their meetings, of their late 

 associate : — 



The faculties still declined, gently, gradually, but surely, the mys- 

 terious presence of life still revealing itself in the simpler and humbler 

 forms which belong to its infancy and its worn-out stage of decay. 

 But the intellect still asserted itself in certain limited portions of the 

 thinking centre. When life had become little more than mere exist- 

 ence, and persons were hardly if at all recognized, he would finish a 

 quotation from some favorite author, if a few words or a line of verse 

 were mentioned in his hearing. He would even go back, if he had 

 made a mistake, and correct it with automatic accuracy. This me- 

 chanical action of the memory could not fail to recall the way in 

 which the phonograph repeats a few connected words of the last sen- 

 tence which has been dictated to it before it begins reciting its new 

 lesson. Could he have watched the gradual extinction of his faculties, 

 as the dying Haller felt the artery at his own wrist, as he himself had 

 watched the progress of his gradual loss of sight, he would have studied 



" with eye serene 

 The very pulse of the machine," 



and noted the phenomena of mental decadence as quietly as in his 

 earlier years he watched the disrobing of the flowers which were 



