Memorial Address—James Davie Butler . 
903 
him with a tribute of roses and formally called upon him at his 
home, where, amid a concourse of friends and with a vigor ap¬ 
parently good for several years to come, he was holding his cus¬ 
tomary birthday reception. 
Small and wiry of frame, Dr. Butler was gifted with un¬ 
usual vitality, having sprung from a healthful and long-lived 
ancestry. This inherited tendency he still further cultivated 
by rigid and persistent physical training, and throughout the 
course of his travels won much repute as a, pedestrian and swim¬ 
mer. His manner was genial and democratic; he had a quaint 
and often merry wit, tempered by shrewd wisdom; his conver¬ 
sation, essays and lectures sparkled with apt quotations from 
Shakespeare, Milton, Dante and the classic philosophers—for 
he had a marvelous memory, which he was fond of exercising 
—and his rich equipment of curious information never failed 
to interest his companions. 
A man of such charming disposition, with an unending fund 
of material for cultivated conversation, could not fail to attract 
friends. His extensive travels and his varied tastes threw him 
into intimate association with men and women of many nation¬ 
alities. It was one of his keenest pleasures to conduct with 
them a protracted and animated correspondence ; and so ubiqui¬ 
tous were his movements, that during at least a half-century of 
3 .is life each of his frier ds, whether in America or abroad, 
might well expect Dr. Butler to knock at their doors and be 
welcomed any day in the year. 
It was, however, in the library of the Wisconsin Historical 
society that his presence was most actively felt. Morning 
after morning, through each long winter season—at was chiefly 
in the summer that he was a bird of passage—he might be seen 
nestled in some alcove, beside a table piled high with books, 
cheerfully oblivious to the world about him. Such was his 
practice up to the last summer of his life, when through in¬ 
creasing feebleness his visits gradually grew less frequent, and 
we saw his light gently fade from our midst, as a candle sink¬ 
ing low into its socket. 
Ho library assistant so gifted with prophecy as to foretell 
what line of authorities he might on his arrival be seeking. 
56—S. & A. 
