MRS. FREDERICK DOUGLASS. BAY RIDGE, N. Y., February 21, 1895. Dear Madam: Reading my morning paper brought me, a few moments since, the great shock from which you must suffer so intensely, if I myself feel the loss so keenly. He has passed away-so noble-so rounded and strong; so beloved and revered! There is one golden thought; one perfect and unbroken halo about him! He filled his days with honor. He served his kind and his cause to the last full moment of his life, and all who honor freedom and esteem man will feel their love for the noble orator and statesman-the stalwart soldier of liberty-deepen into the truest reverence. May this be to you his best legacy. He was my friend and his passing away is a personal loss. That he sent me, but a few days since, so friendly a letter, so full a tribute to my small work, is to me a great pleasure, even in the midst of this sorrow. My deepest sympathies go out to you, Dear Madam, and my wife joins therein. Always with profoundest respect, Yours faithfully and truly, Richard J. Hiritar PULLUN AVENUE, CINCINNATI, OHIO, DEAR MRS. FREDERICK DOUGLASS: February 21, 1895. The sad tidings of the death of your dear husband carry sorrow through the land—I may say many lands; but nowhere more surely than to the family that has cherished his name for more than fifty years. Permit me to offer their sympathy in the tender words he addressed to me when he heard of the irreparable loss they had sustained. "Be assured, my dear friend," he said, "you and yours have my fullest sympathy in the great sorrow that has befallen your house. But what can I say, what can any one say, that can lift one shadow cast by this death upon your heart? Alas! sorrow must bring its own solace, and mourning its own comforter." And then, after speaking of the long and useful life of one he had known in "youth, maturity and age," and of "her abundant charity in early taking up the cause of the slave, pre-eminently the cause of Christ," he continued, "But here I am, trying to do the impossible! I cannot, by word or thought, console you. Sometimes I find myself reminding friends, whose dear ones have departed, that we will soon join the unnumbered throng in the silent continent of eternity. I do this now more than formerly, because I am sensibly growing old. I am now in my seventy-eighth year. My friends tell me that I do not seem old, and assure me that I have many days left me; but I do not deceive myself by such illusions. I am looking to the sunset and doing so very calmly. I know I am in the care and keeping of the Almighty, and, whether I live or die, I still remain within the arm of His power." Very sincerely your friend, Rachune Bullun No. 146 BROADWAY, NEW YORK, MRS. FREDERICK DOUGLASS. I little thought, when I had the honor of introducing him at the Providence meeting, that I should never see him again in the flesh, and I shall count it among the hallowed memories of my life that I did then meet him, and had a chance to grasp his hand and to hear his voice. My wife and Mrs. Fleet and her sons join with me in condoling with you and Mr. Douglass' children, in what must, from the nature of things, be an irreparable bereavement. I am Madame, Yours most respectfully, Lichard T. Greener. MRS. FREDERICK DOUGLASS. ANN ARBOR, MICH. Dear Madame: News has just reached the West of the sudden demise of your honored, beloved and illustrious husband, Frederick Douglass. Allow me to express my heartfelt sympathy and condolence in your hour of affliction. Your sobs, your groans, your sighs are reverberated in the sobs, the groans, the sighs of twelve millions of negroes who loved him ; who idolized him, and who will cherish his name and his memory as no name and memory were ever before cherished. Your loss is not sectional, not national; but a universal loss. Therefore feel not alone in your sorrow and affliction, but consider that, at this same moment, thousands, yea millions, mourn with you for the death of Frederick Douglass. Again expressing my sympathy and condolence, I have the pleasure to be Yours very truly, Titull blay ander LÉGATION DE LA RÉPUBLIQUE D'HAÏTI, NEW YORK, le 21 Fevrier, 1895. Madame: C'est avec une douloureuse surprise qu'Haïti apprendra la nouvelle de la mort subite de l'honorable Frédéric Douglass, votre époux. Le Président Hyppolite, le Gouvernement et le Peuple haïtiens regretteront vivement la perte du grand tribun de la race noire, de celui qui par ses vertus et par ses talents a conquis l'admiration et le respect des classes éclairées de tous les pays du monde. Veuillez agréer, Madame, l'expression de mes sentiments personnels de profond chagrin. C.Ha Ministre d'Haïti. How swiftly that great soul passed on into the Light! It seems but a day since we were talking pleasantly together,-only two days before his transit to a better world. When we read the account, this morning, Lady Henry Somerset and I said, in one breath, "How thankful we are that we saw him!" It was one of life's pleasantest experiences-that little talk with your great and good husband. I shall never have his voice for my phonograph, but the autobiography is a noble monument to his memory. Lady Henry and I have been reading it with great pleasure, and we highly value the autograph inscriptions. Dear friend, may the blessing and comfort of our Heavenly Father help you, is my prayer. Ever sincerely, Frances DeWillard SAGINAW, E. S., MICH., MY DEAR MADAME : I have learned with profound regret of the death of your husband. I condole with you most sincerely on the sad event, and if sympathy of friends can be any consolation under the trying circumstances, be assured that all who knew him share in your sorrow for his loss. There is, however, a higher source of consolation than earthly friendship, and, commending you to that, I remain, To MRS. FREDERICK DOUGLASS, P. S. Please accept the enclosed lines.-J. H. G. Respectfully, J. H. GRAY. BROOKLYN, N. Y., February 22, 1895. TO THE BEREAVED WIDOW AND FAMILY OF HONORABLE FREDERICK DOUGLASS, ANACOSTIA, D. C. Dear Madam and Friends: We, the officers and members of St. Augustine P. E. Church Aid Literary, of Brooklyn, realizing the great and irreparable loss that the race has sustained by the demise of the Honorable Frederick Douglass, the chief pioneer of emancipation throughout the Union, respectfully tender to you, the bereaved family, our sincere and inexpressible condolence, and trust that you may find some solace in the fact that "he is not dead, but gone before," to receive the fruits of his lifelong labors. We remain yours in sympathy, SUMNER C. LEWIS, President. LOUIS A. JEPPE and members, Special Committee. MY DEAR MRS. DOUGLASS: 125 HIGHLAND STREET, ROXBURY, MASS., February 22, 1895. The announcement of your honored husband's swift translation to another life, came with a shock to me, as to all his friends and to the world at large, and you have my deepest sympathy in your great bereavement. But while I deplore his departure, and keenly feel the irreparable loss which the country has sustained in the disappearance of his unique and noble and inspiring personality, I am glad that the great change came, as I believe he would have wished it, without pain, or suffering, or decay, and in an instant, and the last happy day of his life, spent as it was at the Woman's Council, the honored guest of that great representative gathering, and by the side of old friends, seems to me not the least of the many dramatic and felicitous incidents of his wonderfully romantic life. I like to think, too, of his last visit to Boston, when his surviving anti-slavery co-workers flocked to greet him, and the Legislature of the State welcomed him in both its Houses; and I am glad I heard his masterly address on the lynching question, at that time. I have many pictures of him in my memory, from the evening when the Emancipation Proclamation was first read in Boston, and he led the great audience in singing "The Year of Jubilee Has Come," to his last appearance in this city, thirty-one years later. I recall him as he appeared in the camp of the Fifty-fourth Massachusetts Regiment, and again, among the exultant speakers in Faneuil Hall, after the fall of Richmond; and I remember with peculiar pleasure his and your visit to my father's old home here, in 1886. He belonged not only to two races, but to two nations, and both and all realize to-day their common loss. In how many homes in England and Ireland his name is spoken with tender affection and sadness to-day! The marvelous contrast between his early years of bondage and suffering and his serene and happy afternoon of life, is the common theme to-day; but only his nearer friends know how serene and happy your companionship made these last years to him. Be assured that they appreciate it and are grateful to you for facing so unflinchingly whatever of trial it involved. That you are and will ever be grateful for the privilege of that companionship with such a great and world-embracing spirit as his, they know full well, and their congratulations go to you with their condolence, now that the earthly limit is reached. Certainly his career here was most happily rounded and crowned. Believe me, with sincerest sympathy and regard, Francis J. Garrison. MY DEAR MRS. DOUGLASS : "THE STRATFORD." PHILADELPHIA, PA., February 22, 1895. The tidings of your great loss and the loss of the entire world, in the death of your noble husband, comes to me as a personal grief, for the impression made by that dignified and genial presence and statesmanlike intellect is still fresh in mind and heart. I shall always be grateful and glad that I was privileged to grasp the hand of the great leader of his race in this century, and one of the chief apostles of the universal freedom of mankind. |