If criticism
is, (as I believe Matthew Arnold once defined it) the discerning of
the characteristic excellencies in things, I could easily show you the
charm of Mr. Mabie's English, the wide range of his culture, the
sweetness and light of his interpretations of nature and human life.
But this is rather a brief tribute to the man himself whom we sons of
Williams have known and admired these many years, and this or any like
tribute, however inadequate, will serve to pay a little of the debt we
owe him for all that he is and all that he has done.
Born in 1846, he graduated from college in 1867 and from the Columbia
Law School in 1869. As I graduated eighteen years later, I never knew
him in those earlier days. But the law did not claim him; almost at
once he turned to literature, for that clearly was his God-given
aptitude. For nearly thirty years he has been an editor of the
_Christian Union_, which afterward became the _Outlook_.
... The boy is father to the man. The gentleness, the refinement, the
generous outlook on life, the genial friendliness, have only grown
into nobler forms through the strenuous years.
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