to Walden Pond or Fairhaven Hill to discuss with his host philosophy and
poetry and life. The small gains of a teacher were enough for the simple
wants of the scholarly gentleman, and after middle life he went often to
Europe, and few Americans have ever gone more admirably equipped. He
travelled sometimes with a tried comrade, sometimes alone, and a life
already full was enriched and enchanted still more by the happy journeys.

"Indeed, the recollection of George Bradford is that of a long life as
serene and happy as it was blameless and delightful to others. It was a
life of affection and many interests and friendly devotion; but it was not
that of a recluse scholar like Edward Fitzgerald, with the pensive
consciousness of something desired but undone. George Bradford was in full
sympathy with the best spirit of his time. He had all the distinctive
American interest in public affairs. His conscience was as sensitive to
public wrongs and perilous tendencies as to private and personal conduct.
He voted with strong convictions, and wondered sometimes that the course
so plain to him was not equally plain to others.

"It was a life of nothing of what we call achievement, and yet a life
beneficent to every other life that it touched, like a summer wind laden
with a thousand invisible seeds that, dropping everywhere, spring up into
flowers and fruit. It is a name which to most readers of these words is
wholly unknown, and which will not be written, like that of so many of the
friends of him who bore it, in our literature and upon the memory of his
countrymen. But to those who knew him well, and who therefore loved him,
it recalls the most essential human worth and purest charm of character,
the truest manhood, the most affectionate fidelity. To those who hear of
him now, and perhaps never again, these words may suggest that the
personal influences which most ennoble and sweeten life may escape fame,
but live immortal in the best part of other lives."