Page:The Whitney Memorial Meeting.djvu/77

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PRESIDENT GILMAN'S ADDRESS.
63

intellectual as well as a moral virtue. Vagueness of expression, uncertainty of that which might be definitely known, neglect of the proper sources of information, the saying more or less than was strictly true in order "to serve a purpose," were faults to which he was not exposed. Integrity ruled his life.

The biographer of Isaac Casaubon said of him: "The scholar is greater than his books. The result of his labors is not so many thousand pages, but himself." So we say of our friend, "The result of his labors is not so many thousand pages, but himself,"—an example, a guide, an inspiration to the younger scholars of this country who now and henceforward proclaim him Master.

For many years I have seen but little of Professor Whitney. Our homes have been far apart, and our vacations have not brought us together. He has recently been kept away from the meetings of the American Oriental Society, which owes to him so much of its reputation. But the impressions of his personality I find as strong as if it were but yesterday when I watched with admiration, and when I saw many others watch, admire, and emulate, his virtues. Love of nature, a vigorous and disciplined will, simplicity, industry, self-forgetfulness, loving-kindness, integrity, reverence,—these are the characteristics which, in spite of the reserve of a recluse, are now recognized as his by a generation of scholars, who delight to say "we were friends and pupils of William Dwight Whitney."