He suffered little pain, and until the last months he preserved in an astonishing degree his physical well-being.
It was clear almost from the start that he was beyond the aid of medical science, even the boldest and most expert.

A disintegration of the brain-tissues had begun--an affection to which specialists hesitated to give a precise name, but which they recognized as incurable.

His mind became as that of a little child.

He sat quietly, day after day, in a chair by a window, smiling patiently from time to time at those about him, turning the pages of a book of fairy tales that seemed to give him a definite pleasure, and greeting with a fugitive gleam of recognition certain of his more intimate friends.
Toward the last his physical condition became burdensome, and he sank rapidly.

At nine o'clock on the evening of January 23, 1908, in the beginning of his forty-seventh year, he died at the Westminster Hotel, New York, in the presence of the heroic woman who for almost a quarter of a century had been his devoted companion, counsellor, helpmate, and friend.