John Hay 



I imagine that in comparing our 

 impressions of him, the thought which 

 comes uppermost in the minds of all 

 of us, is that Clarence King resembled 

 no one else whom we have ever 

 known. The rest of our friends we 

 divide into classes ; King belonged 

 to a class of his own. He was inimita- 

 ble in many ways : in his inexhausti- 

 ble fund of wise and witty speech ; 

 in his learning, about which his mar- 

 vellous humor played like summer 

 lightning over far horizons ; in his 

 quick and intelligent sympathy which 

 saw the good and the amusing in the 

 most unpromising subjects ; in the 

 ease and the airy lightness with which 

 he scattered his jewelled phrases ; but 

 above all in his astonishing power of 

 diffusing happiness wherever he went. 

 Years ago, in a well-known drawing- 

 room in Washington, when we were 

 mourning his departure from the 

 Capital, one of his friends expressed 

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