ed as my own
experience of men and books has ripened and deepened and brought me into
closer and closer sympathy with you and more complete conscious
agreement with all your opinions and sentiments. I can recall none of
your words and writings which I have not cordially approved of, and I
shall always feel deeply grateful to Mrs. Lyster Venables (Venables'
sister-in-law), for whom also I feel the warmest friendship, and to
Pember for suggesting to me a way of showing my feelings about you,
which would never have occurred to a person so abundantly gifted with
clumsy shyness as myself. However, I do not believe you will like me the
worse for having the greatest possible difficulty in writing to any man
such a letter as this.'

The three lights of the window, representing Moses, Aaron, and Joshua,
were intended as portraits of Venables and his two brothers. Beneath was
the inscription suggested by Mr. Pember, 'Conditori hujus ecclesiae
amicissimi quidam.' Fitzjames adds that he had felt 'a passing wish' to
add his favourite words, 'Be strong and of a good courage,' which, at
his suggestion, Dean Stanley had taken as the text for a funeral sermon
upon Lord Lawrence. I will only add that Fitzjames had said in private
letters substantially what he said to Venables himself. On October 8,
1888, he heard of his old friend's death, and again wrote an article of
warm appreciation in the 'Saturday Review.'

V. JAMES KENNETH STEPHEN

I have now to give a brief notice of events which had a saddening
influence upon the later years. Fitzjames, as I have remarked, had seen
comparatively little of his elder children in their infancy. As they
grew up, however, they had been fully admitted to his intimacy and
treated on the footing of trusted and reasonable friends. The two
younger daughters had been playthings in their infancy, and grew up in
an atmosphere of warm domestic affection. Just before Venables' death
Fitzjames made a little tour in the West of Ireland with his daughter
Rosamond, who has preserved a little account of it. I shall only say
that it proves that she had a delightful travelling companion; and that
his straightforward ways enabled him to be on the friendliest terms with
the natives whom he encountered. Among the frequent declarations of the
happiness of his life, he constantly observes that one main condition
was that his children had never given him a moment's uneasiness. Two,
indeed, had died in infancy; and Fra