The uniformity of the testimony to his integrity and business capacity borne by many whose relations with him were widely dissimilar removes all idea of exaggeration; while the terms in which they write of him are so diverse from the ordinary commendations of the mart or the exchange, as to show in a striking manner the influence exercised by an altogether exceptional character in the ordinary relations of business. Mr. Robertson, who was long his manager in New York, thus writes: “During the many years I had the privilege of knowing Mr. Nelson, I was increasingly drawn towards him by his strict integrity, his kindliness, his splendid energy, his intellectual activity, and his unostentatious piety. There was no duty so humble that he would not stoop to perform it; there was no amount of hard work or fatigue that ever turned him away from his purpose. There was no appeal ever made to him by the suffering or poverty-stricken that did not meet with a kindly and sympathetic response. There was in him a fine appreciation of merit, regardless of the social status of its possessor; and although he would have been unwilling to admit it, there was in him a Christ-like going about continually doing good which was simply beautiful.” This affectionate respect which he awakened in all who were brought into intimate relations with him as his trusted agents is constantly apparent. His confidence when once secured was implicit; and any breach of trust or neglect of duty was a source of intense pain to him, wholly apart from any idea of personal loss.
The following characteristic reminiscences are derived from notes furnished by Mr. John Miller, whose business transactions with Mr. Nelson, as a large paper manufacturer, brought them into frequent intercourse: “Mr. Nelson had an immense aptitude for the despatch of business, and great promptness of decision, never wasting any time talking over bargains. When a paper-maker called and showed him a sample, if it was not to his mind, or the price too high, he would in the most courteous manner thank him for the sample, but he would in no way depreciate the paper. If the paper was right, he would say, ‘Well, it is just the price we are paying;’ or if the price were better, he would frankly say, ‘It is a little better than the price we are buying at. I shall give you an order; and if you can maintain the quality at the price, we shall continue to order from you.’ There was never any second bargain at settlement. If the paper sent was not according to sample, it would be paid for without remark, and no further orders given. Mr. Nelson had no time and no disposition to haggle over a bargain, and no man could better appreciate value. He was in every respect a very capable man of business. After his marriage he began to take business a little more leisurely; at all events, he seemed to take more time for the little courtesies of life, which were so greatly developed in his after years.”
He had proved himself a true captain of industry; organized his extensive business on the most systematic basis; gathered around him a body of skilled and trusty workmen, on whose loyal co-operation he could rely; and having thus, with prudent foresight, surmounted the many impediments that had inevitably beset his way, he turned aside from the anxieties of business to make for himself a home, in which all the congenial elements of a singularly emotional and sensitive nature should thenceforth find free scope for development. He retained to the close of his life his interest in the multitudinous details of the printing and publishing works; but he found time for the gratification of many refined tastes, and for a practical sympathy in public questions, as well as in the exercise of an open-handed beneficence, the full extent of which has only been revealed since his death.
The new life of which marriage is the source began for William Nelson when he was in his thirty-sixth year. On the 24th of July 1851, Catherine Inglis, the daughter of Robert Inglis, Esquire of Kirkmay, Fifeshire, a descendant of Sir James Inglis, Bart., of Cramond, gave her hand, with her heart in it, to William Nelson. The marriage took place at the old mansion of Kirkmay, acquired by her father, with the estates of Sypsis and Kirkmay, on his return from a highly successful career in India. The maternal grandfather of the bride had seen long service there; and letters preserved by the family show that he was held in high esteem by Lord Cornwallis, and was the trusted and confidential friend of Warren Hastings. One of them, addressed to him while he was Resident at the Court of Scindia, is an amusing example of epistolary conciseness in preferring an unusual request; and as such was peculiarly germane to William Nelson’s tastes, as well as to his sense of humour. His fondness for animals manifested itself at times in odd ways, and had he received any encouragement the pleasure grounds at Salisbury Green would have been apt to assume the character of a zoological garden. When travelling in California in 1870, along with Mrs. Nelson, he was reluctantly dissuaded from bringing off with him as a novel pet a “gofer,” or beautifully striped species of lizard, which an Indian offered for sale. Here was a still more unmanageable pet in request by the old Indian viceroy in his letter to the grandfather of the bride:—
Benares, 14th March, 1784.
“Dear Sir,—If you can possibly contrive to procure for me a young lion of a size which may be carried over rocky and mountainous roads, I shall be much obliged to you. I want to gratify the eager desire which has been expressed by the ruler of Tibet to have one in his possession; the people of this country having a religious veneration for a lion, of which they know nothing but in the doubtful and fabulous relations of their own books.—I am, dear sir, yours affectionately,
“Warren Hastings.
“To Lieutenant James Anderson.”
But this ancestral reminiscence carries us far afield from the wedding-party at Kirkmay House, where the bride was given away by her brother, who had then succeeded to the estate; and so the old home was exchanged for one which she gladdened through all the happy years till that inevitable parting which every wedded union involves. Thenceforth life had for William Nelson a deeper meaning, and was passed in the quiet centre of a sunlight all his own, till he reached beyond the limit of the threescore years and ten.
The biographer must ever feel that he executes a delicate trust in drawing aside the curtain that veils the sanctities of home life. But here there was nothing to conceal. A friend who met Mr. and Mrs. Nelson at a German spa twenty years later thus writes: “I was greatly interested in watching him as he, with all the attention and devotion of a lover, refilled and carried the glass of water to his wife, and tended on her, then an invalid, with untiring care.” And so it continued to be to the close. Thirty-six years of happy wedded union glided by. Daughters in time followed their mother’s example, and left the old home to make new centres of happiness. Eveline, the eldest, was married in 1874 to Professor Annandale, Professor of Surgery in the University of Edinburgh; and in 1886 her sister Florence became the wife of S. Fraser MacLeod, Esquire, barrister, London, a friend of the family from early boyhood. By-and-by the little grandchildren presented themselves to claim their mothers’ places in the hearts of those who had found it hard to reconcile themselves to the blanks round the old hearth, where Meta and Alice still remained, with their brother Frederick, to play the new rôle of uncle and aunts. The home of the Nelsons at Salisbury Green was familiar to many through all those years as a rare centre of genial hospitality, with some unique features of its own worthy of further note.