PEMBROKE LODGE, August 5, 1897
Sinclair[114] has been reading a great deal to me since my illness began. Miss Austen's "Emma," which kept its high ground with me although I had read it too often to find much novelty in the marvellous humour and reality of the characters. Then "Scenes of Clerical Life" ... the contrast between the minds and the brain-work of Jane Austen and George Eliot very striking. Jane Austen all ease and spontaneousness and simplicity, George Eliot wonderful in strength and passion, and fond of probing the depths of human anguish, but often ponderous in long-drawn philosophy and metaphysics, and with a tediously cynical and flippant tone underlying her portraits of human beings--and a wearisome lingering over uninteresting details. Her defects are, I think, far more prominent in this than in her best later books.
In the summer of 1897 she had a severe illness, from which, as the following letter shows, she partially recovered.
Mrs. Warburton to Lady Agatha Russell
PEMBROKE LODGE, October 11, 1897
You can't imagine, or rather you can, what a happiness it is to be able to record a perfect drive round the Park again with Mama this most beautiful day, she enjoying it as of yore, and as full of pleasure and observation as I ever remember. In short, it is quite difficult to me to realize how ill she has been since I saw her in June. She seems and looks so well. She is a marvellous person, so young and fresh in all her interests, sight and hearing betraying so little sign of change. She says she is out of practice, and her playing is not as easy or as vigorous as it was, I thought; but how few people of her age would return to it at all after such a long illness. (There are the sounds of music overhead as I sit here in the drawing-room--how she enjoys it!) ... About the reading--Dr. Gardiner[115] was against her being prevented from a little--she enjoys it so much. Sinclair reading to her is a great comfort.
PEMBROKE LODGE, November 15, 1897
Eighty-two this day. God be praised for all he has given to brighten my old age. God be praised that I am still able to love, to think, to rejoice, and to mourn with those dear to me. But the burden of wasted years of a long life, in which I see failure on every side, is weighty and painful, and can never be lightened. I can only pray that the few steps left to me to take may be on a holier path--the narrow path that leads to God. My own blessings only brought more vividly to my mind the masses of toiling, struggling, poverty-stricken fellow-creatures, from whom the pressure of want shuts out the light of life.
My Agatha well, weather beautiful, and seventy very happy boys and girls from the school to see a ventriloquist and his acting dolls (drawing-room cleared for the occasion). The children's bursts and shouts of laughter delightful to hear.
Lady Russell was wonderfully well that day--her last birthday on earth--and joined in the fun and laughter as heartily as any of the children. Old age had not lessened her keen enjoyment of humour, nor dimmed the brightness of her brave spirit.
PEMBROKE LODGE, December 11, 1897
A beautiful day for old scholars' meeting. Ninety-four came, a larger number than ever before; table spread in drawing-room and bow-room. Not able to go down to see them, but all went well and merrily. I was able to get to my sitting-room in the afternoon, and all came up to me by turns for a hand-shake. It was pleasant to see so many kindly, happy faces.
PEMBROKE LODGE, January 1, 1898
What will 1898 bring of joy or sorrow, good or evil, life or death, to our home, our country, the world? May we be ready for all, whatever it may be.
Six days later she was attacked by influenza, which turned to bronchitis, and very soon she became seriously ill. There was for one day a slight hope that she might recover, but the rally was only temporary, and soon it was certain that death was near.
The last book that her daughter had been reading to her was the "Life of Tennyson," by his son, which she very much enjoyed. She begged her daughter to go on reading it to her in the last days of her life, and her keen interest in it was wonderful, even when she was too ill to listen to more than a few sentences at a time.