In many ways Morier combined the qualities of the old and the new schools. Though personally a favourite with kings and queens, he was fully alive to the changes in the Europe of the nineteenth century, where, along with courts and cabinets, other more unruly forces were at work. His visit to Paris in 1848 showed his early interest in popular movements, and he maintained a catholic width of view in later life. He knew men of all sorts and kept himself acquainted with unofficial currents of opinion. He could talk freely to journalists or to merchants, could put them at their ease and get the information which he wanted. His comprehensiveness was remarkable. The strife of politicians in the foreground did not blur the distant landscape. In Russia, behind Balkan intrigues and Black Sea troubles he could see the cloud of danger overhanging the Pamirs. In Spain or Portugal he was watching and forecasting the possibilities of the white races in Africa. So his dispatches, varied and vivacious as they were, proved of the greatest value to Foreign Secretaries at home, and furnish excellent reading to-day.
In these dispatches a few Gallicisms occur; and in writing to an old friend like Sir William White he uses a free mixture of French and English with other ingredients for seasoning. But in general the literary style is admirable. He has a rare command of language, a most inventive use of metaphor, a felicitous touch in sketching a character or an incident. Towards those working under him he was exacting, setting up a high standard of industry, but he was generous in his praise and very ready to take up the cudgels for them when they needed support. In commending one of them, he selects for special praise 'his old-fashioned conscientiousness about public work and his subordination of private comfort'. He inherited this tradition from his own family and his faithfulness to it cost him his life.
Above all, we feel in reading these letters and memoranda that here is a man whose aim is truth rather than effect—not thinking of commending a programme to thousands of half-informed readers or hearers, in order to win their votes, but giving counsel to his peers, Odo Russell or Sir William White, Lord Granville or Lord Salisbury, on events and tendencies which affect the grave issues of peace and war and the lives of thousands of his fellow-countrymen. This generation has learnt how unsafe it is to treat these in a parliamentary atmosphere where men force themselves to believe what they wish and close their eyes to what is uncomfortable. While human nature remains the same, democracy cannot afford to deprive itself of such counsel or to belittle such a profession.
JOSEPH LISTER
1827-1912
| 1827. | Born at West Ham, April 5. |
| 1844-52. | University College, London. |
| 1851. | Acting House Surgeon under Erichsen. |
| 1852. | First research work published. |
| 1853. | Goes to Edinburgh. House Surgeon under Syme. |
| 1855. | Assistant Surgeon and Lecturer at Edinburgh Infirmary. |
| 1856. | Marries Agnes Syme. |
| 1860. | Appointed Professor of Clinical Surgery at Glasgow. |
| 1865. | Makes acquaintance with Pasteur's work. |
| 1866-7. | Antiseptic treatment of compound fractures and abscesses. |
| 1867. | Papers on antiseptic method in the Lancet. |
| 1869. | Appointed Professor of Surgery at Edinburgh. |
| 1872-5. | Conversion of leading scientists in Germany to Antisepticism. |
| 1875. | Lister's triumphal reception in Germany. |
| 1877. | Accepts professorship at King's College, London. |
| 1879. | Medical congress at Amsterdam. Acceptance of Lister's methods by Paget and others in London. |
| 1882. | von Bergmann develops Asepticism in Berlin. |
| 1883. | Lister created a Baronet. |
| 1891. | British Institute of Preventive Medicine incorporated. |
| 1892. | Lister attends Pasteur celebration in Paris. |
| 1893. | Death of Lady Lister. |
| 1895-1900. | President of Royal Society. |
| 1897. | Created a Peer. |
| 1902. | Order of Merit. |
| 1907. | Freedom of City of London: last public appearance. |
| 1912. | Dies at Walmer, February 10. |
JOSEPH LISTER
Surgeon
In a corner of the north transept of Westminster Abbey, almost lost among the colossal statues of our prime ministers, our judges, and our soldiers, will be found a small group of memorials preserving the illustrious names of Darwin, Lister, Stokes, Adams, and Watt, and reminding us of the great place which Science has taken in the progress of the last century. Watt, thanks partly to his successors, may be said to have changed the face of this earth more than any other inhabitant of our isles; but he is of the eighteenth century, and between those who developed his inventions it is not easy to choose a single representative of the age. Stokes and Adams command the admiration of all students of mathematics who can appreciate their genius, but their work makes little appeal to the average man. In Darwin's case no one would dispute his claim to represent worthily the scientists of the age, and his life is a noble object for study, single-hearted as he was in his devotion to truth, persistent as were his efforts in the face of prolonged ill-health. No better instance could be found to show that the highest intellectual genius may be found united with the most endearing qualities of character. Kindly and genial in his home, warmly attached to his friends, devoid of all jealousy of his fellow scientists, he lived to see his name honoured throughout the civilized world; and many who are incapable of appreciating his originality of mind can find an inspiring example in the record of his life. There is no need to make comparisons either of fame, of mental power, or of character; but the choice of Lister may be justified by the fact that his science, the science of Health and Disease, is one of absorbing interest to all men, and that with his career is bound up the history of a movement fraught with grave issues of life and death from which few families have been exempt.