Funeral Speech

[David]

There were numerous great moments during the funeral, including this poignant speech:

We stand weeping over the broken strings of an instrument now stilled. He was an artist, & what he was, he was only through art. The thorns of life had wounded him deeply, & as the shipwrecked man clutches the saving shore, he flew to your arms.

He was an artist, & who shall stand beside him? He was an artist, but also a man, a man in every sense, in the highest sense. Because he shut himself off from the world, they called him hostile; & callous, because he shunned feelings.

He fled the world because he did not find, in the whole compass of his loving nature, a weapon with which to resist it. He withdrew from his fellow men after he had given them everything & had received nothing in return. He remained alone because he found no second self. But until his death he preserved a human heart for all men, a father's heart for his own people, the whole world.

Thus he was, thus he died, thus he will live for all time!