My Dearest Livy—
Here at dead of night I seem to hear tof the far Pacific—& mingled with the music of the surf the melody of an old familiar hymn is sounding in my ear. It comes like a remembered voice—like the phantom of a form that is gone, a face that is no more. You know the hymn—it is “Oh refresh us.” It haunts me now because I am thinking of a steadfast friend whose death I have just learned through the papers—a friend whose face must always appear before me when I think of that hymn—the Rev. Franklin S. Rising. I hear he was lost in the late disaster on the Ohio river. He was rector of the Episcopal church in Virginia City, Nevada—a noble young fellow—& for 3 years, there, he & I were fast friends. I used to try to teach him how he ought to preach in order to get at the better natures of the rough population about him, & he used to try hard to learn—for I knew them & he did not, for he was refined & sensitive & not intended for such a people as that. And {I mentioned him once in an absurd sketch entitled “Information for the Million” in that “Jumping Frog” book.} Afterward I stumbled on him in the Sandwich Islands, where he was traveling for his health, & we so arranged it as to return to San Francisco in the same ship. We were at sea five Sundays. He felt it his duty to preach, but of the 15 passengers, none even pretended to sing, & he was so diffident that he hardly knew how he was to get along without a choir. I said, “Go ahead—don’t be afraid—I’ll bac stand by you—I’ll be your choir.” And he did go ahead—& I was his choir. We could find only one hymn that I knew. It was “Oh, Refresh us.” Only one—& so for five Sundays in succession he stood in the midst of the assembled people on the quarter-deck & gave out that same hymn twice a day, & I stood up solitary & alone & sang it! And then he went right along, happy & contented, & preached his sermon. We were together allthe time—pacing the deck night & day—there was no other congenial company. He tried earnestly to bring me to a knowledge of the true God. In return, I read his manuscripts & made suggestions for their emendation. We got along well together (I never acquired a good man’s friendship & lost it again, in all my [live life, Livy.) A month ago, after so long a separation, he saw by the Tribune that I was at the Everett House, & came at once & left his card—I was out & did not see him. It was the last opportunity I was ever to have on earth. For his wanderings are done, now; his restless feet are still; he is at peace.Now the glories of heaven are about him, & in his ears its mysterious music is sounding—but to me comes no vision but a lonely ship in a great solitude of sky & water; & unto my ears comes no sounds but the complaining of the waves & the softened cadences of that simple old hymn—but Oh, Livy, it comes freighted with infinite pathos!
Tunes are good remembrancers. Almost every one I know am familiar with, summons instantly a face when I hear it. It is so with the Marseillaise, with theBonny Doon & a score of others; when I hear “We 3 Kings of Orient” I think of Mrs Severance, sure—& whenever I hear the “Prodigal” I shall as surely think of you, my loved & honored Livy.
