He turned upon these the bitterness
engendered by disappointment. Cynicism lent edge to his wit, and
bitterness to his sarcasm. He was at war with himself, and
consequently with all the world. His mind felt none of the imbecility
of age, and to the last retained its perspicuity and power. As he came
into life a man, and never knew a boyhood, so he went from it a man,
without the date of years. At sixty-eight years of age, he went
quietly from life without suffering, and, to himself, without regret.
He was a man--take him all in all--whose like we shall not look on
soon again.
The virtues and the vices, the loves and the hates of life were
strangely blended in the character of John Randolph Grymes; but if we
judge from the fact that he had and left many warm and devoted
friends, and few enemies, we must suppose the good in his nature
greatly preponderated. But notwithstanding the great space he had
filled in the eyes of the people of the city, his death startled only
for a moment, and straightway he was forgotten; as the falling pebble
dimples for a moment the lake's quiet surface--then all is smooth
again.
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