We were sad to-day.  One said, “King is dead.”  “Yes,” answered the other, and we were silent.  Memory was busy.  We could not talk.  In his office, where yet he wears the harness of the law, surrounded by musty, well-thumbed books, and piles of papers with hard judicial faces, we sat and mused.  Perhaps we thought of the past, when those to whom eternity is a reality were with us and joyous.  At such times the mind turns quickly back to youth’s joys, nor lingers along the vista of intervening time.  All of that day will revive, but these memories sadden the heart, and we are fain to think, but not to talk.  Perhaps we wondered what were the realizations of the dead.  What are they?  Who knows, except the dead?  Do the dead know?  Unprofitable thought!  Faith and hope only buoy the heart, and time brings the end.  Well, time has whitened our heads, but not indurated our hearts, and time is now as busy as when in the joyousness of youth we heeded not his flight, and to-morrow may bring us to the grave.  Ah! then we shall know the secret, and we will keep it, as all who have gone before.  Oh, what a blessed hope is that which promises that we shall, forgetful of the cares and sorrows of time, meet those whom death has refined, and be happy as they in eternity!  But the doubt, and then the fear!  But why the fear?  We come into time without our knowledge or consent, fulfil a destiny, and without our knowledge or consent die out of time.  This is the economy of man’s life, and was given him by his Creator.  Then why should he fear?  If it is wise for him to be born, to live, it is surely wise that he should die, since that is equally a part of his economy.  Then why fear?  Reason is satisfied, but instinct fears.

Yelverton P. King never removed from the county of his birth, nor abandoned his profession, remaining upon the soil of his nativity and among those with whom he had been reared, maintaining through life the character of an upright man.  Many memories are connected with his name.  When we were young at the Bar, there were as our associates very many who attained eminence as lawyers, and fame as politicians; but these distinctions are not connected with the endearing attributes which make them so cherished in memory—­the incidents of social intercourse, the favors, the kindnesses of good neighborhood, the sympathies of young life, the unity of sentiment, the sameness of hopes, little regarded at the moment; but oh! how they were rooting in the heart, to bear, away in the coming time, these fruits of memory, in which is the most of happiness when age whitens the head, and the heart is mellowed with the sorrows of time.

Though all were affectionate and social in their intercourse with each other, yet each had his favorites, because of greater congeniality in nature, more intense sympathies, and more continual intercourse.  Little incidents were of frequent occurrence which drew these continually closer, until friendships ripened into confidences—­some more special favorites of some, and some more general favorites of all.  This latter was Y.P.  King; and yet this favoritism was never very demonstrative, but perhaps the stronger and more permanent for this.  Such, too, was Nesbitt; the older members of the profession loved him, and those of his own age were unenvious and esteemed him.