But while I write of her public work, it would be but half the truth unless I said a word about her personally. She was at home in every class of society. She was very beautiful, and of a very gracious presence, and the impression made by first seeing her and hearing her voice has, I expect, been forgotten by none who ever met her. She was of a very artistic temperament. She was a good painter, an extremely good musician. She was a bold rider, and active, though always of a somewhat weak health. Her industry and application was unbounded. She was very full of humour, and, while deeply in earnest, had the faculty of being at times charmingly gay. She dressed with great taste and simplicity. She, above all things, loved her home and her husband, and that love was wholly returned.
I have said she was extremely cosmopolitan, and all who have known her know how true that is. At the same time she was a great lover of her own country, and particularly of the borderland between England and Scotland, where she was born, and where she now lies buried in the churchyard of Kirknewton, where many of her ancestors lie. For she came of an old Border family; and bravery, and the alertness of battle, and the power of self-sacrifice, and the indignation against wrong which characterised her, came to her, perhaps, partly through her descent.
She was a great reader of the Bible, and a humble suppliant before the throne of God. But, while her own beliefs were clear and definite, she had no narrowness in her views, and the very names of those who have been her foremost supporters show how wide her sympathies were, and how acceptable she was to people of all creeds, as well as of all politics and of all climes.
She had to endure much, especially in the early stages of her crusade—the averted glances of former friends, the brutal attacks of ignorant opponents—but the inspiration of a mighty purpose enabled her to rise above all that, and to preserve a serenity of mind and of manner through it all.
And now, what is the sum of it all? It seems to me to be this, that we must all be glad that she lived. We are each of us individually better, and the world as a whole is better, because she lived; and the seed that she has sown can never die.
JAMES STUART.
Josephine E. Butler.