DAVID WORTH DENNIS — AN APPRECIATION. 75 



found in some deep shady glen, a common algae of the brook; all these things 

 moved him to strange delight. Often has he told me that the robin or the 

 blue-bird or the oriole that came and sang in his dooryard this spring had just 

 as fresh an interest, stirred in him just as deep a joy as those which had sung 

 in his boyhood days. In the woods he was a rare companion, and as I pen 

 these lines there come thronging back a host of happy memories of many 

 golden days spent in the woods of May and June. His visits were always 

 looked forward to with eager anticipation and are among the most cherished 

 memories of our lives. I think he knew that the latch-string always hung 

 out at "Pinehurst Farm;" and his simple tastes, his utter freedom from 

 conventionality, his fine sociability and his entertaining talk made him a 

 thrice welcome guest. It mattered not that his coming was unexpectedly 

 announced by a long distance call or a hasty line — neither did it matter that 

 the corn-planter must stand idle for a day or two, for some wonderful things 

 were happening in the woods of the hill-country which very urgently de- 

 manded our presence there. 



When Robert Louis Stevenson died in Samoa, Bliss Carman, in an im- 

 passioned threnody, said of him: 



"He was not born for age. Ah no. 

 For everlasting j'outh is his! 

 Part of the lyric of the Earth 

 With spring and leaf and blade he is." 



David Dennis was "part of the lyric of the Earth." He had the spirit of 

 undying youth. Life for him never lost its zest. 



It was on a singularly beautiful morning in May when we met in the chapel 

 of the college, where so many of the best years of his life had been spent, to 

 pay a little tribute of love and respect to his memory. Out on the campus 

 the vireos and orioles were singing. The president arose and after reading 

 to us that great Pauline oration in the 13th chapter of 1st Corinthians said: 

 "On this the most beautiful day of the year I have read to you one of the 

 most beautiful pieces of literature ever written, and we have come to pay 

 a simple tribute of love to the memory of one of the most beautiful lives that 

 has ever been lived." What more could one say than that? Only, again, 

 just let us say of him those words which Emerson spoke of Thoreau — "Wher- 

 ever there is truth, wherever there is beauty, wherever there is virtue, he will 

 find a home." 



