^°*-.g?^^^^] Brewster, In Memoriam: James Gushing Merrill. 117 



door life and making a considerable collection of birds. When he 

 returned to Washington, early in 1897, it was to receive the appoint- 

 ment of Librarian at the Surgeon General's Office. Here he spent 

 the brief remainder of his days, performing, with his accustomed 

 steadfastness and ability, tasks perhaps not altogether uncongenial, 

 but obviously irksome to a man of his temperament, and so very 

 arduous and confining, that, by degrees, his health and strength 

 yielded to the strain. Not so his courage, for up to the very last 

 he maintained a brave and serene front; applying himself unremit- 

 tingly to his work whenever his strength pennitted, and almost 

 up to the last calming the anxiety of intimate friends by the cheerful 

 assurance that he was not really ill. But by the summer of 1902, 

 his condition had become so obviously serious that he was induced 

 to spend a few weeks at White Sulphur Springs, Virginia, in the 

 hope that the rest and change might do him pennanent good; they 

 proved of no avail, however, and he died of chronic nephritis in 

 Washington on October 27, 1902. 



When in the prime of life, Dr. Merrill was a fine and indeed dis- 

 tinguished-looking man, rather tall and very strongly built, with 

 that erect, military bearing characteristic of army officers the world 

 over. He was an excellent linguist, speaking two foreign languages, 

 French and German, and reading and translating no less than nine 

 others: viz. Latin, Greek, Italian, Spanish, Portuguese, Dutch, 

 Danish, Swedish and Russian. He had refined yet very simple 

 tastes, quick intelligence, sound judgment, high ideals of honor, 

 manliness and duty, untiring patience and industry. Although fear- 

 less, self-reliant and inflexible of purpose, in the discharge of his 

 customary duties, his modesty respecting his general ability and 

 desserts amounted almost to humility, and, no doubt, prevented him 

 from aspiring to tasks and honors which otherwise he might have 

 undertaken and achieved. In speech, as in thought, he was direct 

 and absolutely sincere, yet very kindly, with a gentle courtesy of man- 

 ner which had an old time flavor to it and was irresistibly winning. 

 No one could meet him, even casually, without being impressed by 

 it and by the obvious fact that it was something difl^erent from the 

 afl'ability of a merely well-bred man. Those who knew him inti- 

 mately recognized that it was but the outward reflection of the 

 dignity, sweetness and purity that lay within. He was so wholly 



