MEMOIR OF EDMUND QUINCY. BY JOSIAH PHILLIPS QUINCY. STANDING With Edmund Quincy before a long shelf laden with the complete works of Sir Walter Scott, I remarked that the mere manual labor of writing all these volumes seemed no slight monument to their author's perseverance and industry. To which came the reply, "Why, I have written much more than Scott ever did, that is to say, in quantity. Only in quality it will generally be considered that he gets the better of me." The effective work of the subject of these pages must be looked for in his writings for the press. During the most fruitful period of his life he expended such power as was in him in contributions to that "compound of rags, oil, and lampblack" which so largely directs our hurrying human current into channels of evil or of good. The desire to influence others, and thus to expand our own personality, is a common stimulus to action. But it is not the common man who, accepting the Puritan gospel of Independency, will put aside the pacific garment of compromise and deliver a message utterly distasteful to the fastidious, well-meaning, and lettered class in which he naturally belongs. Contribution by editorial writing or by correspondence to the "Anti-Slavery Standard," the "Liberator," the "Non-Resistant," the "New York Tribune," the " Albany Transcript," the "Independent," and other journals, was the serious work of Edmund Quincy. It was largely work beneath the surface in ways that were neither conspicuous nor gainful. His ready wit and reach of literary vivacity sometimes led him into expressions not acceptable to the philosopher or college |