Two severe losses marked the year 1888. Maine died on February 3. The old friendship had lost none of its warmth; and Fitzjames had frequently enjoyed visits to the lodge at Trinity Hall, where Maine, as master, presided over the Christmas gatherings. Fitzjames commemorated his friend by an article in the 'Saturday Review.[196] In a warm eulogy, he praises the 'clearness and sobriety of Maine's generalisations as well as their intrinsic probability,' and declares that the books were written 'as if by inspiration.' Maine, he says, was equally brilliant as a journalist, as a statesman, and as a thinker. Fitzjames speaks, though a little restrained by his usual reserve, of the 'brotherly intimacy of forty years, never interrupted by a passing cloud'; and ends by saying that there are 'persons to whom the world can never have the same aspect again as when Maine lived in it.' It had been a great pleasure, I may add, that he had been able to appoint one of his friend's sons, who died soon after the father, to a clerkship of assize on the South Wales circuit.
In the autumn Maine was followed by Venables. Fitzjames paid an annual visit to the house where Venables lived with his brother at Llysdinam, on the border of Radnorshire. He often mentions in his letters the filial affection with which he regarded Venables. In the previous year (1887) he had an opportunity of expressing this more directly than usual. One of Venables' friends, Mr. Pember, had suggested that they might show their affection by presenting a stained glass window to a church which Venables had built. Fitzjames took up the plan warmly, and with the help of a few other friends carried out the scheme. When it was made known to Venables, who of course was much gratified, Fitzjames wrote to him a letter (August 1, 1887) of which I quote the important part. 'I found your letter on my return from the country this morning. You are quite right in thinking that I did say a great deal less than I meant. I feel shy in putting into quite plain words what I feel about you; but I do not like such things to prevent me from saying just once that I like you, honour you, and respect and admire you more than almost any man I ever knew. For nearer forty than thirty years you have been to me a sort of spiritual and intellectual uncle or elder brother, and my feelings about you have constantly grown and strengthened 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 ecclesiæ 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 Frances, a very promising girl, had died of rheumatic fever July 27, 1880. Such troubles, however deeply felt, cannot permanently lessen the happiness of a healthy and energetic life. His three sons grew into manhood; they all became barristers, and had all acted at different times as his marshals. I shall say nothing of the survivors; but I must speak briefly of the one who died before his father.
James Kenneth Stephen was born on February 25, 1859.[197] His second name commemorates his father's friendship for his godfather, Kenneth Macaulay. He was a healthy lad, big and strong, and soon showed much intellectual promise. He was at the school of Mr. William Browning at Thorpe Mandeville; and in 1871 won a foundation scholarship at Eton, where he became the pupil of Mr. Oscar Browning, the brother of his former master. He already gave promise of unusual physical strength, and of the good looks which in later years resulted from the singular combination of power and sweetness in his features. The head of his division was H. C. Goodhart, afterwards Professor of Latin at the University of Edinburgh.[198] Other boys in the division were George Curzon and Cecil Spring Rice. James was surpassed in scholarship by several of his friends, but enjoyed a high reputation for talent among his cleverest contemporaries. The school, it appears, was not quite so much absorbed by the worship of athletics as was sometimes imagined. James, however, rowed for two years in the boats, while his weight and strength made him especially formidable at the peculiar Eton game of football 'at the wall.' The collegers, when supported by his prowess, had the rare glory of defeating the Oppidans twice in succession. He was ever afterwards fond of dilating with humorous enthusiasm upon the merits of that game, and delighted in getting up an eleven of old Etonians to play his successors in the school. He was, however, more remarkable for intellectual achievements. With Mr. Spring Rice and another friend he wrote the 'Etonian,' which lasted from May 1875 to August 1876; and several of the little poems which he then wrote were collected afterwards in his 'Lapsus Calami.'[199] They are, of course, chiefly in the humorous vein, but they show sufficiently that Eton was to him very different from what it had been to his father. He was a thoroughly loyal and even enthusiastic Etonian; he satirises a caviller by putting into his mouth the abominable sentiment—
Ye bigot spires, ye Tory towers,
That crown the watery lea,
Where grateful science still adores
The aristocracy.
His genuine feeling is given in the lines on 'My old School':—
And if sometimes I've laughed in my rhymes at Eton,
Whose glory I never could jeopardise,
Yet I'd never a joy that I could not sweeten,
Or a sorrow I could not exorcise,