Boston has always led the generous and magnanimous actions of our history. Boston led the cause of the Revolution. Here was commenced that discussion, pregnant with the independence of the colonies, which, at first occupying a few warm but true spirits only, finally absorbed all the best energies of the continent,--the eloquence of Adams, the patriotism of Jefferson, the wisdom of Washington. Boston is the home of noble charities, the nurse of
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the best society, with a mind eager for new truths, with a taste refined by classical pursuits, a memory as retentive as a vice, and an aspiration which no impediment could repress, he treasured up a golden store of intellectual wealth, and. on his return to Boston early in 1840 possessed an affluence of learning and a felicity of diction which commanded the admiration of our most accomplished scholars.
“You have indeed,” wrote Mr. Prescott the historian to him, “read a page of social life such as few anywhere have access to; for your hours have been passed with the great,--not merely with those born to greatness, but those who have earned it for themselves.”
With what delight Mr. Sumner again beheld the domes of Boston, and how well he loved his native city, may be inferred from these remarks he subsequently made concerning it:--
B. B. Russell, 1874.
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