To breathless Nature's dark abyss.
Last Illness
From every rank in social life came outpourings in every key of reverence and admiration. People appeared—as is the way when death comes—to see his life and character as a whole, and to gather up in his personality, thus transfigured by the descending shades, all the best hopes and aspirations of their own best hours. A certain grandeur overspread the moving scene. Nothing was there for tears. It was “no importunate and heavy load.” The force was spent, but it had been nobly spent in devoted and effective service for his country and his fellow-men.
From the Prince of the Black Mountain came a telegram: “Many years ago, when Montenegro, my beloved country, was in difficulties and in danger, your eloquent voice and powerful pen successfully pleaded and worked on her behalf. At this time vigorous and prosperous, with a bright future before her, she turns with sympathetic eye to the great English statesman to whom she owes so much, and for whose present sufferings she feels so deeply.” And he answered by a message that “his interest in Montenegro had always been profound, and he prayed that it might prosper and be blessed in all its undertakings.”
Of the thousand salutations of pity and hope none went so much to his heart as one from Oxford—an expression of true feeling, in language worthy of her fame:—
At yesterday's meeting of the hebdomadal council, wrote the vice-chancellor, an unanimous wish was expressed that I should convey to you the message of our profound sorrow and affection at the sore trouble and distress which you are called upon to endure. While we join in the universal regret with which the nation watches the dark cloud which has fallen upon the evening of a great and impressive life, we believe that Oxford may lay claim to a deeper and more intimate share in this sorrow. Your brilliant career in our university, your long political connection with it, and your fine scholarship, kindled in this place of ancient learning, have linked you to Oxford by no ordinary bond, and we cannot but hope that you will receive with satisfaction this expression of deep-seated kindliness and sympathy from us.
We pray that the Almighty may support you and those near [pg 528] and dear to you in this trial, and may lighten the load of suffering which you bear with such heroic resignation.
To this he listened more attentively and over it he brooded long, then he dictated to his youngest daughter sentence by sentence at intervals his reply:—
There is no expression of Christian sympathy that I value more than that of the ancient university of Oxford, the God-fearing and God-sustaining university of Oxford. I served her, perhaps mistakenly, but to the best of my ability. My most earnest prayers are hers to the uttermost and to the last.
When May opened, it was evident that the end was drawing near. On the 13th he was allowed to receive visits of farewell from Lord Rosebery and from myself, the last persons beyond his household to see him. He was hardly conscious. On the early morning of the 19th, his family all kneeling around the bed on which he lay in the stupor of coming death, without a struggle he ceased to breathe. Nature outside—wood and wide lawn and cloudless far-off sky—shone at her fairest.