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[[newspaper clipping]]
A LAST FAREWELL
ALBERT PIKE'S TOUCHING LETTER TO A DYING FRIEND.
From the Fort Smith (Ark.) Tribune.
We gladly give place to the following beautifully worded letter from Gen. Albert Pike to Dr. Thurston, of Van Buren, and received by the latter the day before he died:
Washington, Sept.3, 1885.
MY DEAREST AND BEST AND TRUEST OLD FRIEND: I have just received your loving message sent to me by Mr. Sandels. I had already two days ago learned from our old friend Cush, who had the information from James Stewart, that you were about to go away from us. In a little while I shall follow you, and it will be well for me if I can look forward to the departure, inevitable for all, with the same patience and equanimity with which you are waiting for it.
I do not believe that our intellect and individuality cease to be when the vitality of the body ends. I have a profound conviction, the only real revelation, which to me makes absolute certainly, that there is a Supreme Deity, the Intelligence and Lord of the universe, to whom it is not folly to pray. That our convictions come from Him, and in them He does not lie to or deceive us; and that there is to be for my very self another, a continued life, in which this life will be as if it had never been, but I shall see and know again those whom I have loved and lost here. 
You have led an upright, harmless, and blameless life, always doing good, and not wrong and evil. You enjoyed the harmless pleasures of life and have never wearied of it, nor thought it had not been a life worth living. Therefore you need not fear to meet whatever lies beyond the veil.
Either there is no God, or there is a just and merciful God, who will deal gently and tenderly with the human creatures whom He has made so weak and so imperfect.
There is nothing in the future for you to fear, as there is nothing in the past to be ashamed of. Since I have been compelled by the lengthening of the evening shadows to look forward to my own nearly approaching departure, I do not feel that I lose the friends who go away before me. It is as it they had set sail across the Atlantic sea to land in an unknown country beyond, whither I soon shall follow to meet them again.
But, dear old friend, I shall feel very lonely after you are gone. We have been friends so long, without a moment's intermission, without even one little cloud or shadow of unkindness or suspicion coming between us, that I shall miss you terribly. I shall never have the heart to visit Van Buren again. There are others whom I like there, but none so dear to me as you—none there or anywhere else. As long as I live I shall remember with loving affection your ways and looks and words, our glad days passed together in the woods, your many acts of kindness, the old home and the shade of the mulberries, and an intimate communion and intercourse during more than 45 years.
I hoped to be with you once more in the woods, but now I shall never be in camp in the woods again. The old friends are nearly all gone; you are going sooner than I to meet them. I shall live a little longer, with little left to live for, loving your memory, and loving the wife and daughter who have been so dear to you. Dear, dear old friend, good-bye! May our Father who is in heaven have you in His holy keeping and give you eternal rest. Devotedly your friend.
ALBERT PIKE.
[[/newspaper clipping]

he lived in Arkansas and wrote about frontier life and hunting adventures if I mistake not.  This letter expresses genuine and most tender feeling and is very touching to me.

Monday Oct. 5" 1885. The air was cool and autumnal this morning. Calvert and I walked up to the Keykout, returning in time for dinner. I am to absorbed in thinking of affairs to enjoy a walk. We talked of what we would like to do and both agreed that we would be content with simple things and a state of life which would be free from the worries of any ambition to live in a luxurious way. I want to escape all that friction and to be able to enjoy nature untrammeled with the cares that come of great possessions. Sara went to a meeting at the Home and Calvert went home by the 4.35 train leaving my father and me alone here. I read Romola and tried to interest him as well as I could by reading this letter of Albert Pikes and a letter I received today from Tom McEntee. Calvert and I arranged that if either of us received our money we would go out among the Mountains for a while. 

Tuesday 6". It has been cloudy and raining all day. I received a letter from Warren this noon which has depressed and troubled me a great deal. He says they do not like the picture I painted for them but he intends to send me a check for it and asks me to replace it with another. Asks if the price was $600 and says nothing about the frame. I wrote him at once as cheerfully as possible acknowledging that I was surprised and disappointed, that I would not accept the money if I had not been depending upon it and did not feel that I had earned it and assuring him that I would do all in my power to satisfy him & Mrs. Warren in replacing it with another picture. I have kept a copy of the letter which I sent to the office this evening. I have had a fear of something just like this and most heartily wish I were able to refuse all commissions. It is so difficult to paint to the conceptions of other people and there are so many chances of failure. This evening came a letter from Fuller enclosing his check for $200 and saying he had forgotten what the frame was to be, so that there is doubt whether I get paid for the frames. I do not wish them to be dissatisfied on that score and shall leave it to them to do as they please. Fuller only said that Warren was to send me a check and presumed he had but expressed no opinion about the picture so I conclude he does not like it. This is all very disappointing. If I were independent I should refuse the money until I had painted a picture they were satisfied with, but this is one of the disadvantages of my dependent position. I shall get the money and will be able to pay some pressing demands but at a sacrifice I wish I could avoid. We were startled at the announcement in the Freeman this evening of the death of Judge Westbrook suddenly in Troy this morning. He was found dead in his bed, presumably from heart disease. Sara had a letter from Janette & Emily, unable to accept her invitation to come here for a visit.