As he will not read what I write I may allow myself to say something more. He was always master of himself and of his emotions; but underlying a somewhat melancholy composure and aspect there were depths of tenderness known only to those who knew his whole nature and his inward life, and it is well for those by whom he is mourned if they can find what he has described in a letter to be his great consolation in all his experiences of the death of those he loved (experiences which had begun early and had not been few), “that the past is sacred and sanctified; nothing can happen hereafter to disturb or obliterate it; nor need the recollection have any bitterness if a man does not, out of a false and morbid sentiment, make it so for himself.”
And he adds:
To me there are no companions more welcome, cordial, consolatory or cheerful than my dead friends.
ARTHUR HENRY HALLAM
Arthur Hallam reading “Walter Scott” aloud on board the “Leeds,”
bound from Bordeaux to Dublin, Sept. 9, 1830.