CLASS OF 1850
The following appreciative notice of the late Alfred Russell, one of the editorials of the Detroit Free Press, will be of interest to many who have not seen it:
"The death of Alfred Russell, quite apart from the tragic suddenness of it, in circumstances of cheerful festivity, and in the moment of his elevation to peculiar honors, is not a common loss. It removes from the world, and especially from his own intimate community, an exceptional intellectual force. Perhaps what he was as a lawyer, in the active practice of chat science, were better left to be estimated by his professional brethren, who are to meet for that specific purpose, but since he was, during more than half a century, a notable figure in the cultured life of the city of his home, it were not unbecoming or inappropriate to speak the word of appreciative remembrance.
"To great learning in the law Mr. Russell added a mind stored with the best literature of the ages. It was not a mere chest in whioh to pack the literary product that was his by reading. It was a mind that assimilated what it took in, sifted and purified it in the process of independent thought, and, on occasion, gave it forth for the instruction, the delight and the relish of all that were so fortunate as to partake of it. In external manners the man was as fine as the mind. Alfred Russell was a model of intercourse with his fellow men. Self-dis- cipline told in all his conduct. He was master of situations in which the exigencies of professional confliot often found him, because of that discipline. Nothing caught him off his balance. The suavity that distinguished him never forsook him, no matter how severe the ordeal he was called on to undergo. The poignant efforts of opposing counsel to catch him off his guard were wasted. Even judicial impatience and' rank injustice were met by him with unruffled spirit and often adroitly turned to his own account. In this he fulfilled the scriptural ideal of a greater man than he that taketli a city. There is no way of accurately,or even approximately,measuring the value to the young in his profession of this kind of self-command. Its advantages are not to be appraised according to any ordinary rule of valuation. They are felt, rather than defined.
"Mr. Russell's intellectual method wassuch that lie could "put his hand on" any of his treasures in the dark so to say. These were classified, labeled, pigeon-holed and always in shape for instant use. No man of our time could boast of happier faculty in neatness and felicity of turning a speech, greater nimbleness in repartee, happier use of learning, without appearance of pedantry, better equipment for the social hour, or easier rise to great occasions, when the best that is in man is immediately and imperatively demanded. Like the poet's minds of old, his mind was to him a kingdom, wherein he reigned with wise beneficence, gentle authority and undisturbed serenity. He was fortunate to live as he lived, to die as he died.
"Had I many sons as I have hairs, I could not wish them to a fairer death."
Secretary, Dr. John Ordronaux, Glen Head, Long Island, N. Y.
