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Henry Augustus Homes. 



One who knew him well in college (Prof. Tyler of Amherst) gives a 

 graphic account of him as he appeared in those days:— "He had a 

 species of dry wit, sometimes shading off into drollery and sometimes 

 inclining to good-natured satire. His words were few, his sayings 

 brief, pointed, not unfrequently aphoristic. He was an original, unlike 

 any of his classmates, different from other men generally. He had a 

 mind of his own, a will which was well-nigh inflexible, opinions which 

 were not easily changed. Introverted, absent-minded, more or less 

 moody and solitary, naturally reticent, but, when he did speak, out- 

 spoken, frank, fearless, generous and just, he made few acquaintances 

 or friends, but those few were strongly attached to him." How true 

 it is that the man is but the child larger grown! This picture of the 

 school-boy of seventeen is substantially the same as that which the 

 man who has but now gone out from us had, in more than half a 

 century of a beneficent life, in larger, firmer lines, engraved upon our 



At that same early age he displayed also those qualities of liberality 

 and kindly helpfulness which will at once be recognized as permanent 

 traits of his character by all who knew him at any time during his 

 life. Although the son of a wealthy and generous father and having 

 more money than any other member of his class, it is recorded of him 

 that " he put on no airs, made no pretensions, spent no more on him- 

 self than others did, but was always liberal in gifts to his society, the 

 class, the college, to all who were in need." His last act on the day 

 of his graduation is cited as characteristic. It was to "put his hand 

 into his pocket and liquidate some unforeseen expenses of the class at 

 commencement." He had an honorable though not a distinguished 

 part on the commencement stage. The subject of his oration — 

 " unique like himself," as a fellow student has characterized it — was 

 Temperament in Genius, a theme, the mere selection of which for 

 that supreme occasion in a boy's life, showed the self-reliant and 

 original as well as the meditative cast of his mind. 



We have dwelt so long upon these four short years of college life, 

 not because of their intrinsic importance in the life of Dr. Homes, 

 not because of the space which they filled in the chambers of his 

 memory throughout that life, but because of the revelation which 

 they afford of his nature, his mental and moral tendencies, the sources 

 of his inspiration, the rooted elements of his character. In these 

 essential respects he seems to have changed less than most men do, 

 or perhaps in these respects he was a man long before he had ceased 

 to be a child. Certain it is that this boy of eighteen, as he stood on 



