[1] _A Small Boy and Others._ New York, 1913.
[2] _A Small Boy and Others_, 1913.
[3] A Small Boy and Others, 1913.
[4] Expressive drawing alas irreproducible.
[5] A drawing of figures in evening lamplight.
[6] Literary Remains of Henry James, Boston, 1885. The portrait
accompanying the volume gave us, alas, but the scantest satisfaction.
[7] _Past and Present_, 1843.
[8] "But, Sir, we have yet one more scene to visit together, connected
with all we have previously witnessed: a home scene, Sir Benjamin; and
we must now ascend a mountain of pity high enough to command the dewy
extense of three kingdoms. From thence we have to look down from every
point of our warm hearts with a sight as multifold as the cherubic eyes.
We are to see with equal penetration through the diverse thickness of
castles, mansions, and cottages, through London and through hamlet, at
young wives and at aged mothers, little children, brothers and
sisters--all groups and ties that are; and at affianced maidens, ties
that were to be. There are rents and tears to-day in the general life:
the bulletin of the dead has come, and the groups of sorrow are
constituted. Splendid Paris bends as a Niobe or as a Rachel while the
corse of her much-enduring Hero is borne to the marble Invalides; other
corses go earthward with a shorter procession, helped away by the spades
of ruder but more instant sculptors; the rucked sod of the Alma is their
urn and monument in one; yet every warrior among them is also buried
to-day with swelling greatness of obsequies, if we could see them, in
the everlasting ruby vaults of some human heart. You are touched, Sir
Benjamin, and are justly religious on this summit. Struck down for a
moment from worldliness, we both discourse without an afterthought on
the immortal state; we hope that the brave are already welcomed in the
land of peace; that our laurels they could not stop to take, and our
earned promotion they seem to have missed are clad upon them now by the
God of battles in front of the shining armies of the just. We hope also
that if their voices could now speak to the mourners, the oil of their
sure gladness would heal our faithless sorrow. It is a true strain no
doubt, and yet but of momentary power." War, Cholera, and the Ministry
of Health. An Appeal to Sir Benjamin Hall and the British People.
London, 1854.
[9] An eminent Unitarian pastor.
[10] My youngest brother's ingenuity was to know as little rest during
much of his life as his strong faculty of agitation--to the employment
of which it was indeed not least remarkably applied. Many illustrations
of it would be to give, had I more margin; and not one of them anything
less than striking, thanks to the vivacity of his intelligence, the
variety of his gifts and the native ability in which he was himself so
much less interested than was the case with everyone he met, however
casually, that he became, many years before his death in 1910, our one
gentleman of leisure: so far as this condition might consort with the
easiest aptitude for admirable talk, charged with natural life,
perception, humour and colour, that I have perhaps ever known. There
were times when Bob's spoken overflow struck me as the equivalent, for
fine animation, of William's epistolary. The note of the ingenious in
him spent itself as he went, but I find an echo of one of its many
incidents in the passage of verse that I am here moved to rescue from
undue obscurity. It is too "amateurish" and has too many irregular
lines, but images admirably the play of spirit in him which after
ranging through much misadventure could at last drop to an almost
effective grasp of the happiest relation.
Although I lie so low and still
Here came I by the Master's will;
He smote at last to make me free,
As He was smitten on the tree
And nailed there. He knew of old
The human heart, and mine is cold;
And I know now that all we gain
Until we come to Him is vain.
Thy hands have never wrought a deed,
Thy heart has never known a need,
That went astray in His great plan
Since far-off days when youth began.
For in that vast and perfect plan
Where time is but an empty span
Our Master waits. He knows our want,
We know not his--till pale and gaunt
With weariness of life we come
And say to Him, What shall I be?
Oh Master, smite, but make me free
Perchance in these far worlds to know
The better thing we sought to be.
And then upon thy couch lie down
And fold the hands which have not sown;
And as thou liest there alone
Perhaps some breath from seraph blown
As soft as dew upon the rose
Will fall upon thee at life's close.
So thou wilt say, At last, at last!
All pain is love when pain is past!
And to the Master once again:
Oh keep my heart too weak to pray;
I ask no longer questions vain
Of life and love, of loss and gain--
These for the living are and strong;
I go to Thee, to Thee belong.
Once was I wakened by Thy light,
But years have passed, and now the night
Takes me to Thee. I am content;
So be it in Thy perfect plan
A mansion is where I am sent
To dwell among the innocent.