Notes of a Son and Brother Part 9

FOOTNOTES:

[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 const.i.tuted. 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 G.o.d of battles in front of the s.h.i.+ning 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 ill.u.s.trations 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 apt.i.tude 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 pa.s.sage 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 pa.s.sed, 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.