Then
his eyes wandered to the space behind them. He fancied he saw the
shadowy forms of the many friends who had preceded him: Laurens,
Tilghman, Harrison, Greene, Andre, Sterling, Duane, Duer,
Steuben,--Washington. They looked at him as affectionately as the
living, but without tears or the rigid features of extremest grief. It
is a terrible expression to see on the faces of men long intimate with
life, and Hamilton closed his eyes, withdrawing his last glance from
Morris and Troup.
Of whom did Hamilton think in those final moments? Not of Eliza Croix,
we may be sure. Her hold had been too superficial. Perhaps not even of
Elizabeth Schuyler, although he had loved her long and deeply. What more
probable than that his last hour was filled with a profound
consciousness of the isolation in which his soul had passed its mortal
tarrying? Surrounded, worshipped, counting more intimate friends
sincerely loved than any man of his time, gay, convivial, too active for
many hours of introspection, no mortal could ever have stood more
utterly alone than Hamilton.
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