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talked of Taylor and Gertrude.
Platt said he he heard of Gertrudes death it was at Mr. Bryants and when Julia told him he was stunned not having heard she was ill. He said he never pitied any one as he did me that night and he wondered how I could stand it. He said Julia Bryant showed him the letter I wrote her on her fathers death and which she told him had been such a great gratification to her. I told him I wrote it from the depths of my heart for I was greatly touched by his death and he said I had never done any thing better and seemed greatly touched by it. He was a great admirer of Gertrude and said   

FUNERAL OF BAYARD TAYLOR.
IMPRESSIVE SERVICES IN BERLIN.
ADDRESSES BY DR. JOSEPH P. THOMPSON AND BERTHOLD AUERBACH-GENERAL MANIFESTATIONS OF SORROW AND RESPECT.
From special Berlin correspondence published in The London Times of December 26, is taken the following account of the funeral services of Bayard Taylor, held in Berlin on December 22:  At 2 o'clock the rooms of the Embassy in the Behrenstrasse were thrown open for the reception of those who desired to pay the last honor to the departed, when a various and brilliant company assembled. The Emperor was represented by his Adjustant-General, Count Lehndorff, he Crown Prince by Major Pannewitz, and the Government by Count Donhoff, Under-Secretary of State, and Von Bülow, of the Foreign Office. Among the deputies present were to be seen Dr. Löwe, George von Bunsen, and Professor Gneist, the famous jurist and Liberal. Men of letters were there, too, in plenty. Close to the bier might be seen Berthold Auerbach, the poet; Spielhagen, the novelist; Julius Rodenberg, editor of the Rundschau; Paul Landau, editor of the Gegenwart; and Professor Lepsius, the Egyptologist. Most of the ambassadors, with their attendant secretaries and military attachés, were present. The coffin was covered with the National banner and heaped with immortelles, evergreens, and flowers. On the company being all assembled, Dr. Joseph P. Thompson, formerly of New-York, and now of Berlin, advanced to the head of the bier and spoke impressively as follows:
FRIENDS AND FELLOW-MOURNERS: It seems but a few days since I was called to speak in commemoration of the patriarch of American literature, William Cullen Bryant. Mr. Taylor presided on that occasion, and while entering most heartily in to the tribute paid to the departed poet, he asked me if I thought any individual citizen of sufficient importance to monopolize our thoughts and feelings on the day of our National anniversary. To-day his question is answered. Here lies a citizen great enough, noble enough to concentrate in himself-his name, is works, his life-the thought and feeling of the whole American people. Yes, there are individual citizens of sufficient importance to share all the honors of the Republic, and to receive from the Republic honors peculiar to themselves. For America lives in and by her citizens. Not birth, nor rank, nor office, station, honor, name, but men-men worthy in character, worthy in action, worthy in life-these are her trophies and her monuments. And I venture to say that in the whole United States there is not a house which possesses a book or takes in a journal, not a pioneer's cabin on the furthest outskirts of the prairie, not a miner's hut in the newest "diggings" of Arizona and Nevada, not a freeman's home in the once slave plantations of the South, that does not thrill to-day with the name of Bayard Taylor.  For he was the "Bayard" of our democratic commonwealth; the knight "without fear and without reproach," who took up the cause of freedom, the cause of woman, the cause of labor, the cause of the slave, the cause of humanity-took up every good and noble cause, and made it his own; and so was down to every one and loved by all. Well may the whole American people mourn his untimely departure. Not America alone, but this great kindred nation, to which he was wedded by the studies and the enthusiasm of his youth, wedded by his literary tastes and associations, and wedded by the most tender and the most sacred domestic ties-this nation which he understood so well, and so well interpreted to the English-speaking peoples-Germany joins with America to-day in mourning the loss of the poet, the scholar, the statesman. But this is not the place nor the hour to think of genius, office, fame. In this supreme moment, in the august presence of death, which levels all honors, ranks and distinctions in the grave, we think only of the man, of the character we prized, of the spirt in the man which death cannot touch, which our hearts refuse to surrender to the grave. It is the man we miss and mourn to-day. In this great public calamity I will not dwell upon our private griefs, much less will I intrude within the sacred precincts of domestic sorrow; yet our hearts will all join in sympathy with the venerable parents in that home beyond the sea, the home of his youth, who having just passed the sixtieth anniversary of their wedded life and celebrated their diamond wedding are robed of the brightest jewel of their home, just as this had been set where it would shine with the brightest lustre. Remembering the age of his parents and the longevity of his ancestors, we feel that his death was premature, his life unfinished; and yet in this very circumstance we had evidence that a life so well sustained, so finely ordered, has not come to an end-the true life still lives. He himself has put this argument in the philosophical poem, "Deukalion," the first copy of which I hold in my had. His inquiring spirit searching all heights and depths, descends into Hades and there exclaims: 
 "The atmosphere of grand extinguished arms,
  Suspended hopes, or foiled ambitions-gives
  Cheer to my soul; for thus in death survives
  Something that will not die."

After recounting the circumstances of Mr. Taylor's early life, his travels, his first literary work, and his later labors, Dr. Thompson continued as follows:
But he was soon called upon to become himself a peripatetic encylopaedia, and from his own large resources and experience to diffuse knowledge by lectures, which called him from town to town, and village to village throughout the land.  His fine presence, brilliant eye, beautiful voice, pure and effective rhetoric, the extent and accuracy of his information the nobleness of his sentiments, the loftiness of his principles, gave a charm to these discourses, and rendered him one of the most useful teachers of the public whom America has ever had.  But his domestic and literary tastes inclined him more and more to withdraw from public life to his home in New-York.  Here is genial manners, his kindly spirit, his loving heart drew around him a choice circle of friends, while his high devotion to principle and duty commanded the confidence of the public. In every emergency he was a man to be trusted. He became a leader of a rising band of poets and authors who had learnt to believe in him as their prophet. At the same time, he held his own place in the higher ranks of literature. He gave himself more and more to poetry as his supreme calling, throwing off now and then a romance by the way. With uncommon assiduity and force of will he devoted himself to literary labors, while at the same time his intelligence and affability made him a general favorite with cultivated men. 
In these circumstances the Government found him when it needed a man for this vacant post here, and the choice of Government was certified by the unanimous approval of the press and people. His countrymen here took pleasure and pride in his appointment. He possessed every quality for this particular mission-familiarity with the language, the people, and the institutions of Germany, experience of diplomatic service in China and Russia, a wide knowledge of men and affairs, good practical judgment, breadth of view combined with that discretion which diplomacy requires, a fame that had preceded him, a name without a stain, the manners of a gentleman, the heart of a friend.  With what cordial grace he came to our homes; with what frank hospitality he welcomed us at the reception of General Grant; with what thoughtful and graceful eloquence he at once represented and instructed us at our last national anniversary.  The welcome given him by the press and the people of Germany echoed the spirit of the ovations which accompanied his departure from the United States.  Mr. Taylor himself took an honest satisfaction in a position which so worthily crowed the labors and the training of his life.  He was in the sphere for which he was fitted, with which he was satisfied.  I shall not forget the frank pleasure with which he told me of his intercourse with the personal celebrities bought together at the Congress, and especially how the author of "Coningsby" and "Tancred," taking him early by the hand, said: "Taylor, Bayard Taylor, how glad I am to see the man whom I have so long known."  He was particularly pleased with the idea of here carrying out the great project of his later years.  e had already translated "Faust" into English verse-a marvel of poetic diction and the best annotated edition of the greatest poem of the greatest poet of Germany.  But he would write a life of Goethe, a task for which, now that Lewes is gone, he was of all men best fitted; and for such a test here he would have had congenial surroundings and literary facilities to cheer him in his work. But, alas! his life of Goethe is unwritten.  It lies within this silent brain.  As long, however, as Goethe himself shall live, Taylor, his best interpreter, shall live with him. And all the while he was unconsciously making a life of fidelity, a life of devotion, of integrity, of manly dignity and beauty, of truth, of love, which is written on our hearts and shall never be effaced.  He who had traversed every land and every sea has gone to "that undiscovered country from whose Bourne no traveller returns." We long for his impressions of that land beyond; yet could he report these to us what more could he say than he said on his first view of the earthly Jerusalem: 
" For one brief moment I knew that I was in Palestine, that I saw Mount Olivet and Mount Zion, and I knew not how it was, my sight grew weak, and all objects trembled and wavered in a watery film."  But the Jerusalem that is below blinding with emotion, the Jerusalem that is above blinding with splendor-these are not things for a traveller's tale, and yet how often will he come back to us, sitting with us and our children at the fireside, reading with us his books of travel, and illuminating them with his large and loving intelligence.  Like every thoughtful mind he had south to explore those unknown scenes.  Like every manly, independent spirit, Taylor had learned to doubt; and how much of the greatness of human freedom lies in the power and the right to doubt, to search, to try!  By doubting he had learnt, also, to believe; but to believe only truth-truth freed from dogmatism-truth stripped of superstition and of