He was an excellent pantomimist; could perform all the parts in a comedy
himself, and with the help of Fred Loring, or some other, would
improvise a burlesque on almost any well-known play. It was after one of
these performances that Whittier (who sat in his quiet corner enjoying
it as much as an honest Quaker dared to) said to Mrs. Thaxter, "Celia,
thou knowest I have never been to the theatre, but I think at last the
theatre has come to me." Weiss was gay with the gay, but could be
profoundly serious again at a moment's warning, and the biting shafts of
his satire never wounded a human soul.
When some one spoke of the peculiarity of John Brown's spelling he
exclaimed: "So much the better, so much the better! What good would a
Webster's dictionary have been at Harper's Ferry? A whole edition of
them could not have accomplished anything."
He was always ailing, and his friends in college doubted if he would
ever reach maturity; yet he lived to be a grey-haired man, and published
a number of excellent books. When he died, in 1878, there were not
wanting malicious people to spread the report that he died of
intemperance, though the wonder is how he could have lived so long. His
death cast a shadow over the social life at Appledore so that it never
quite recovered its former gaiety. About the same time several
millionaires made their appearance; cottages began to arise upon the
rocks; a small steam-yacht plied like a water-bug between the different
islands, and the place became continually more fashionable and
conventional.
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