What was conspicuous to all who had frequent
opportunities of seeing Mr. Tazewell in his own house or in the house of
a friend was, that he had no set topics. His range of reading and
observation had been so wide, his knowledge of men and things was so
vast, his faculties of combination were so active, it was impossible to
state a question to be decided by precedent or reasoning, which he could
not instantly handle with a force of logic which most men could only
have reached by deliberate preparation. But all that humor and wit and
genius are gone: that stream of talk has ceased to flow; and on leaving
the study, where for so many years he delighted his hearers by acts of
personal kindness and instructed them by his wisdom, we pass into
another room--the saddest of all--the chamber of Death.
There, in, that room above the parlor, on the bright Sabbath morning of
May the sixth, at twenty-five minutes past ten, he breathed his last. He
was slightly indisposed the Monday previous; but until the evening of
that day he did not appear to be seriously ill. He complained of no
particular pain, but of a general restlessness and _malaise_.
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