662 THEODORE LYMAN. 



course, in his personal intercourse with his companions that this charm 

 was most distinctly felt. It was this which led to his being for many 

 years, by common consent, chairman of his Class dinners, as the Class 

 Secretary E. II. Abbot tells us in a most appropriate and affectionate 

 notice of him prepared for distribution to the members of the Class of 

 1855. 



The members of the Thursday Evening Club, over which he presided 

 for many years, will long remember the way in which the meetings were 

 enlivened by his ready wit, and the happy manner in which he intro- 

 duced the successive speakers. 



Upon this life, so filled with everything that could make life enjoyable, 

 early fell the shadow of a mortal disease, so gradual in its approach that 

 few of his friends were aware that the first warning came sixteen years 

 before his death. During this period he was, in the words of his friend 

 and classmate, E. H. Abbot, "day by day parting with the power to act, 

 until at last he was forced to stand still and watch the stream of life flow 

 by ; a soul imprisoned in a body which was gradually losing all power of 

 movement, and which at last became absolutely helpless and dependent 

 for every service upon external aid. To him of all men these years of 

 prolonged and growing uselessness must have seemed a living death. And 

 yet they who know most about him know that those years were really the 

 noblest of his life. His brave spiiit in this growing isolation, which at 

 last withdrew him from the sight of almost all except his own family, 

 surmounted all barriers. He never permitted liimself to lose his active 

 interest in the events of other lives. He cheered on the doers of good all 

 over the world by messages which came from his chamber with all their 

 old-time gayety and brightness. When his hand could no longer hold the 

 pen, he spoke through his tender amanuensis words full of the same high 

 courage and cheerful humor which had been his charm in earlier life." 



In concluding this brief notice of Theodore Lyman, it may perhaps be 

 permitted to supplement the above tender and truthful description of his 

 last years with a few words employed by the writer of tliis sketch to 

 introduce a resolution of the Thursday Evening Club replying to an affec- 

 tionate message from its former President on the fiftieth anniversary of 

 its foundation : — 



" I remember, Mr. President, when a young man, looking around among 

 the men of my generation and considering whose lot in life seemed to me, 

 on the whole, the most enviable. I came to the conclusion that Theodore 

 Ljinan was, of all my acquaintances, the man for whom the future 

 seemed to hold out the brightest promise. 



