ght to think
only that it meant to him seven years of very great happiness." That was
perfectly true! If he had been called upon to leave Hare Street to take
up some important work elsewhere, he would certainly not have dwelt on
the pathetic side of it himself. He would have had a pang, as when he
kissed the doorposts of his room at Mirfield on departing. But he would
have gone forward, and he would have thought of it no more. He had a
supreme power of casting things behind him, and he was far too intent on
the present to have indulged in sentimental reveries of what had been.

It is clear to me, from what the doctors said after his death, that if
the pneumonia which supervened upon great exhaustion had been averted,
he would have had to give up much of his work for a long time, and
devote himself to rest and deliberate idleness. I cannot conceive how he
would have borne it. He came once to be my companion for a few days,
when I was suffering from a long period of depression and overwork. I
could do nothing except answer a few letters. I could neither write nor
read, and spent much of my time in the open air, and more in drowsing in
misery over an unread book. Hugh, after observing me for a little,
advised me to work quite deliberately, and to divide up my time among
various occupations. It would have been useless to attempt it, for
Nature was at work recuperating in her own way by an enforced
listlessness and dreariness. But I have often since then thought how
impossible it would have been for him to have endured such a condition.
He had nothing passive about him; and I feel that he had every right to
live his life on his own lines, to neglect warnings, to refuse advice. A
man must find out his own method, and take the risks which it may
involve. And though I would have done and given anything to have kept
him with us, and though his loss is one which I feel daily and
constantly, yet I would not have it otherwise. He put into his life an
energy of activity and enjoyment such as I have rarely seen. He gave his
best lavishly and ungrudgingly. Even the dreadful and tragical things
which he had to face he took with a relish of adventure. He has told me
of situations in which he found himself, from which he only saved
himself by entire coolness and decisiveness, the retrospect of which he
actually enjoyed. "It was truly awful!" he would say, with a shiver of
pleasing horror. But it was all worked into a rich and glowing tape