he letter is dated
from Durban, January 11.) "We were drawing rations like the soldiers,
but had some '74 port and a plum-pudding which we were keeping for
Christmas Day.... Shells fell in our vicinity more or less like angels'
visits, and I had a bet with him of a dinner. I backed our house to be
hit against another which he selected; and he won. I am to pay the
dinner at the Savoy when we return."

There is little more to record of the actual facts at this moment. The
following cable, which has till now remained unpublished, tells its own
tale too sadly:--

"Steevens, a few days before death, had recovered so far as to be
able to attend to some of his journalistic duties, though still
confined to bed. Relapse followed; he died at five in the
afternoon. Funeral same night, leaving Carter's house (where
Steevens was lying during illness) at 11.30. Interred in Ladysmith
Cemetery at midnight. Night dismal, rain falling, while the moon
attempted to pierce the black clouds. Boer searchlight from Umbala
flashed over the funeral party, showing the way in the darkness.
Large attendance of mourners, several officers, garrison, most
correspondents. Chaplain M'Varish officiated."

When I read that short and simple cablegram, the thought came to my mind
that if only the greater number of modern rioters in language were
compelled to hoard their words out of sheer necessity for the cable, we
should have better results from the attempts at word-painting that now
cumber the ground. And this brings me directly to a consideration of
Steevens's work. In many respects, of course, it was never, even in
separate papers, completed. Journalist and scholar he was, both. But the
world was allowed to see too much of the journalist, too little of the
scholar, in what he accomplished. 'The Monologues of the Dead' was a
brilliant beginning. It proved the splendid work of the past, it
presaged more splendid work for the future. And then, if you please, he
became a man of action; and a man of action, if he is to write, must
perforce be a journalist. The preparations had made it impossible that
he should ever be anything else but an extraordinary journalist; and
accordingly it fell out that the combination of a wonderful equipment of
scholarship with a vigorous sense of vitality brought about a unique
thing in modern journalism. Unique, I say: the thing may be done again,
it is true; but he was the