The Book of Eulogies: A Collection of Memorial Tributes, Poetry, Essays, and Letters of Condolence »

Phyllis Theroux is the author of California and Other States of Grace and Nightlights: Bedtime Stories for Parents in the Dark. The founder of the Nightwriters seminar, she is a magazine columnist, children's book writer, and was a regular essayist on The NewsHour with Jim Lehrer. She lives in Ashland, Virginia.

This invaluable anthology is the first and only collection dedicated to the art of the eulogy. For the past several years, Phyllis Theroux has collected the most eloquent and moving writing commemorating a death, assessing a life, or offering solace to the bereaved. Ranging from Thomas Jefferson's magisterial eulogy for George Washington to Anna Quindlen's affectionate memorial for her grandmother; from Helen Keller's words about her dear friend Mark Twain to Adlai Stevenson's about Eleanor Roosevelt, The Book of Eulogies establishes that great eulogies are a celebration of remarkable lives that can illuminate, confirm, inspire, and redirect our own.

Theroux has included some of the world's most well-known tributes, such as Pericles' Funeral Oration, Jules Michelet's appreciation of Jeanne d'Arc, Victor Hugo's ringing words on the one hundredth anniversary of Voltaire's death, Cardinal Suenens's eulogy for Pope John XXIII. But most of the eulogized assembled here are eighteenth- to twentieth-century Americans, and the stories of their lives illuminate our history with a particularly intimate light. In Robert Kennedy's extemporaneous remarks upon hearing of the death of Martin Luther King, or Eugene McCarthy's tribute to his friend and colleague, Hubert Humphrey, the values, wisdom, and spirit of both the eulogized and the eulogizer are revealed.

The Book of Eulogies is a sourcebook for anyone who must find words of solace, understanding, and inspiration on the occasion of a beloved's death. It is also a treasury of astonishing eloquence, passion, and humanity — a record of extraordinary lives, seen through the eyes of those who knew and loved them.

Library Journal

Theroux has gathered over 100 eulogies delivered in the form of spoken tributes, editorials, letters of condolence, essays, and poetry. Many of these testimonials are eloquently penned by the well known to commemorate the well known (e.g., Thomas Merton on Flannery O'Connor, Robert F. Kennedy on Martin Luther King). Others are equally compelling memorials to unknown souls by everyday people. There are helpful commentaries by the author. A worthwhile addition to any collection.

CONTENTS

Introduction

PART I: PUBLIC TREASURES

CHAPTER 1: THE CREATORS

Johann Sebastian Bach by William F. Buckley Jr.

Ludwig van Beethoven by Franz Grillparzer

Charlotte Brontë by William Makepeace Thackeray

Emily Dickinson by Susan Gilbert Dickinson

Walt Whitman by Robert Green Ingersoll

Rupert Brooke by Sir Ian Hamilton

Pierre-Auguste Renoir by Jean Renoir

William Butler Yeats by Wystan Hugh Auden

Flannery O'Connor by Thomas Merton

Wystan Hugh Auden by Hannah Arendt

John Hersey by Bernardine Connelly

William Stafford by Kim R. Stafford

CHAPTER 2: A NATION'S HEROES AND MARTYRS

Jeanne d'Arc by Jules Michelet

Ulysses S. Grant by Rev. Henry Ward Beecher

Jeremiah O'Donovan Rossa by Patrick Henry Pearse

Lawrence of Arabia by Sir Winston Churchill

Mahatma Mohandas K. Gandhi by Jawaharlal Nehru

Astronauts Virgil Grissom, Edward White, and Roger Chaffee by Eric Sevareid

Yitzhak Rabin by Noa Ben-Artzi Philosof

CHAPTER 3: PUBLIC SERVANTS

George Washington by Thomas Jefferson

Thomas Jefferson by Nicholas Biddle

Abraham Lincoln by Carl Sandburg

John Fitzgerald Kennedy by Sean Quinlan

Adlai Ewing Stevenson by Richard N. Goodwin

Sen. Hubert Horatio Humphrey by Eugene J. McCarthy

CHAPTER 4: REFORMERS AND RENEGADES

Henry David Thoreau by Ralph Waldo Emerson

John Peter Altgeld by Clarence S. Darrow

Eugene Victor Debs by Heywood Campbell Broun

Jane Addams by Christian Century Editorial

Eleanor Roosevelt by Adlai Ewing Stevenson

John XXIII by Leon Joseph Cardinal Suenens

Martin Buber by New York Times Editorial

Robert F. Kennedy by David Murray

Bishop James Albert Pike byWilliam Stringfellow

Dorothy Day by Jim Forest

Cesar Estrada Chavez by Peter Matthiessen

Jessica Mitford by Molly Ivins

CHAPTER 5: WARRIORS IN THE AFRICAN-AMERICAN STORY

Daniel Webster by Rev. Theodore Parker

John Brown by John H. Finley

Abraham Lincoln by Frederick Douglass

Charles Sumner by Joseph H. Rainey

Burghardt Du Bois by W. E. B. Du Bois

The Martyred Children of Birmingham by Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.

James Chaney by Fannie Lee Chaney

Malcolm X by Ossie Davis

Rev. James J. Reeb by Robert A. Reed

Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King by Robert F. Kennedy

Vernon E. Jordan Sr. by Vernon E. Jordan Jr.

James Baldwin by William Styron

Arthur Robert Ashe by New York Times Editorial

Marian Anderson by New York Times Editorial

CHAPTER 6: A NATION'S DEAD

Pericles' Funeral Oration

Lincoln's Gettysburg Address

Memorial Tablet by Kemal Pasha Atatürk

A Valedictory to the Unknown Soldiers of World War II by James O'Neill Jr.

Days of Remembrance by Elie Wiesel

CHAPTER 7: THE EULOGY AS SOCIAL COMMENTARY

Queen Anne of England by Sarah, Duchess of Marlboro

Voltaire by Victor Hugo

Rev. Henry Ward Beecher by Sinclair Lewis

William Jennings Bryan by H. L. Mencken

Nadezhda Mandelstam by Joseph Brodsky

Marilyn Monroe by Diana Trilling

CHAPTER 8: DEATH BE NOT SOLEMN

Riley Grannan by William Herman Knickerbocker

Ambrose Bierce by Florence King

Minnie Marx by Alexander Woollcott

Sister Beatrice of Jesus, OCD, by Sister Robin Stratton, OCD

PART II: PRIVATE LIVES

CHAPTER 9: PARENTS

Laurie Lee on His Mother, Annie Lee

Richard Seizer on His Mother, Gertrude Seizer

Betsy McCully Cooper on Her Mother, Eloise McCully Simmons

Charles Trueheart on His Father, William C. Trueheart

Michael Saltz on His Father, Jerome Saltz

Julie Houston on Her Mother, Rutheda Hunt d'Alton

Marie Harris on Her Mother, Marie Murray Harris

A Eulogy to My Unknown Father by Rosa Ordaz

Catharine A. MacKinnon on Her Father, George E. MacKinnon

David R. Cook on His Mother, Nelle Reed Cook

CHAPTER 10: CHILDREN

Susy Clemens by Mark Twain

Mary White by William Allen White

Peter Benjamin Weisman by Mary-Lou Weisman

John Conrad Jr. by John Conrad Sr.

CHAPTER 11: BROTHERS AND OTHERS

Clark Ingersoll by Robert Green Ingersoll

Alice Lee Roosevelt by Theodore Roosevelt

Amy Catherine Wells by H. G. Wells

Kitty O'Donnell Quindlen by Anna Quindlen

Roberta Marget Schultz by Madeline Marget

Francis Xavier Gallagher by Father Joseph Gallagher

CHAPTER 12: SUCH GOOD FRIENDS

James Ferrier by Robert Louis Stevenson

Mark Twain by Helen Keller

Maj. Robert Gregory by William Butler Yeats

Anne Sullivan Macy by Alexander Woollcott

Edward F. Ricketts by John Steinbeck

James Agee by John Huston

H. L. Mencken by William Manchester

Nance MacDonald by Mary McGrory

Lewis B. Puller Jr. by Sen. Bob Kerrey

Elizabeth Lyngdoh by Albert Pingree

CHAPTER 13: ANIMAL LOVES

Old Drum by George Graham Vest

Calvin by Charles Dudley Warner

Daisy by E. B. White

Coco by Vineyard Gazette Editorial

PART III: WORDS OF CONSOLATION

CHAPTER 14: WHAT DEATH MEANS

Buddha

Plato

Sir Francis Bacon

Henry David Thoreau

Kahlil Gibran

Henry Scott Holland

Rev. Henry Van Dyke

Thornton Wilder

Helen Keller

Florida Scott-Maxwell

CHAPTER 15: GRIEF DEFINED

On Sorrow by Henry James

On Overcoming Suffering by Katherine Mansfield

The Living Are Defined by Whom They Have Lost by Anna Quindlen

Grief by Julius Lester

Mothers Who Have Lost a Child by Erma Bombeck

Alex's Death by Rev. William Sloane Coffin

CHAPTER 16: LETTERS OF CONDOLENCE

Dr. Samuel Johnson

Benjamin Franklin

William Blake

James Russell Lowell

Emily Dickinson

Abraham Lincoln

Robert Louis Stevenson

Ambrose Bierce

William Dean Howells

Sir Walter Raleigh

George Bernard Shaw

T. E. Shaw (Lawrence of Arabia)

George Santayana

F. Scott Fitzgerald

Albert Einstein

Ernest Hemingway

Thornton Wilder

Rabbi Schlager

Henry Miller

William Maxwell

The Connell Family

Robert Williams

Katherine Sprinkel

CHAPTER 17: POETRY

After Great Pain, a Formal Feeling Comes, by Emily Dickinson

Musée des Beaux Arts by Wystan Hugh Auden

Dirge Without Music by Edna St. Vincent Millay

From Antony and Cleopatra by William Shakespeare

On My First Sonne by Ben Jonson

Epitaph on Elizabeth L. H. by Ben Jonson

She Dwelt Among the Untrodden Ways, by William Wordsworth

Break, Break, Break by Alfred, Lord Tennyson

Do Not Go Gentle into That Good Night by Dylan Thomas

My Grandmother in the Stars by Naomi Shihab Nye

Catullus' Ode to His Brother

Sweet Brother, If I Do Not Sleep, by Thomas Merton

To the Memory of Arthur Greeves by C. S. Lewis

We'll Go No More A-Roving, by George Gordon Lord Byron

The Soldier by Rupert Brooke

Of All This Numerous Progeny, by John Dryden

I Think Continually of Those Who Were Truly Great by Sir Stephen Spender

Death, Be Not Proud by John Donne

Be Ahead of All Parting, by Rainer Maria Rilke

You Will Never Be Alone, by William Stafford

Flesh of My Flesh by Barbara Boggs Sigmund

From "Song of Myself" by Walt Whitman

Don't Grieve by Rumi

From "A Dialogue of Self and Soul" by William Butler Yeats

God's Grandeur by Gerard Manley Hopkins

From "Vacillation" by William Butler Yeats

Credits

Index