* Cornhill Magazine
I saw him first nearly twenty-eight years ago, when he proposed to become the illustrator of my earliest book. I saw him last, shortly before Christmas, at the Athenaeum Club, when he told me that he had been in bed three days — that, after these attacks, he was troubled with cold shiverings, “which quite took the power of work out of him”— and that he had it in his mind to try a new remedy which he laughingly described. He was very cheerful, and looked very bright. In the night of that day week, he died.
The long interval3 between those two periods is marked in my remembrance of him by many occasions when he was supremely4 humorous, when he was irresistibly5 extravagant6, when he was softened7 and serious, when he was charming with children. But, by none do I recall him more tenderly than by two or three that start out of the crowd, when he unexpectedly presented himself in my room, announcing how that some passage in a certain book had made him cry yesterday, and how that he had come to dinner, “because he couldn’t help it”, and must talk such passage over. No one can ever have seen him more genial8, natural, cordial, fresh, and honestly impulsive9, than I have seen him at those times. No one can be surer than I, of the greatness and the goodness of the heart that then disclosed itself.
We had our differences of opinion. I thought that he too much feigned10 a want of earnestness, and that he made a pretence11 of under-valuing his art, which was not good for the art that he held in trust. But, when we fell upon these topics, it was never very gravely, and I have a lively image of him in my mind, twisting both his hands in his hair, and stamping about, laughing, to make an end of the discussion.
When we were associated in remembrance of the late Mr. Douglas Jerrold, he delivered a public lecture in London, in the course of which, he read his very best contribution to Punch, describing the grown-up cares of a poor family of young children. No one hearing him could have doubted his natural gentleness, or his thoroughly12 unaffected manly13 sympathy with the weak and lowly. He read the paper most pathetically, and with a simplicity14 of tenderness that certainly moved one of his audience to tears. This was presently after his standing15 for Oxford16, from which place he had dispatched his agent to me, with a droll17 note (to which he afterwards added a verbal postscript), urging me to “come down and make a speech, and tell them who he was, for he doubted whether more than two of the electors had ever heard of him, and he thought there might be as many as six or eight who had heard of me”. He introduced the lecture just mentioned, with a reference to his late electioneering failure, which was full of good sense, good spirits, and good humour.
He had a particular delight in boys, and an excellent way with them. I remember his once asking me with fantastic gravity, when he had been to Eton where my eldest18 son then was, whether I felt as he did in regard of never seeing a boy without wanting instantly to give him a sovereign? I thought of this when I looked down into his grave, after he was laid there, for I looked down into it over the shoulder of a boy to whom he had been kind.
These are slight remembrances; but it is to little familiar things suggestive of the voice, look, manner, never, never more to be encountered on this earth, that the mind first turns in a bereavement19. And greater things that are known of him, in the way of his warm affections, his quiet endurance, his unselfish thoughtfulness for others, and his munificent20 hand, may not be told.
If, in the reckless vivacity21 of his youth, his satirical pen had ever gone astray or done amiss, he had caused it to prefer its own petition for forgiveness, long before:—
I’ve writ1 the foolish fancy of his brain;
The aimless jest that, striking, hath caused pain;
The idle word that he’d wish back again.
In no pages should I take it upon myself at this time to discourse22 of his books, of his refined knowledge of character, of his subtle acquaintance with the weaknesses of human nature, of his delightful24 playfulness as an essayist, of his quaint23 and touching25 ballads26, of his mastery over the English language. Least of all, in these pages, enriched by his brilliant qualities from the first of the series, and beforehand accepted by the Public through the strength of his great name.
But, on the table before me, there lies all that he had written of his latest and last story. That it would be very sad to any one — that it is inexpressibly so to a writer — in its evidences of matured designs never to be accomplished27, of intentions begun to be executed and destined28 never to be completed, of careful preparation for long roads of thought that he was never to traverse, and for shining goals that he was never to reach, will be readily believed. The pain, however, that I have felt in perusing29 it, has not been deeper than the conviction that he was in the healthiest vigour30 of his powers when he wrought31 on this last labour. In respect of earnest feeling, far-seeing purpose, character, incident, and a certain loving picturesqueness32 blending the whole, I believe it to be much the best of all his works. That he fully33 meant it to be so, that he had become strongly attached to it, and that he bestowed34 great pains upon it, I trace in almost every page. It contains one picture which must have cost him extreme distress35, and which is a masterpiece. There are two children in it, touched with a hand as loving and tender as ever a father caressed36 his little child with. There is some young love as pure and innocent and pretty as the truth. And it is very remarkable37 that, by reason of the singular construction of the story, more than one main incident usually belonging to the end of such a fiction is anticipated in the beginning, and thus there is an approach to completeness in the fragment, as to the satisfaction of the reader’s mind concerning the most interesting persons, which could hardly have been better attained38 if the writer’s breaking-off had been foreseen.
The last line he wrote, and the last proof he corrected, are among these papers through which I have so sorrowfully made my way. The condition of the little pages of manuscript where Death stopped his hand, shows that he had carried them about, and often taken them out of his pocket here and there, for patient revision and interlineation. The last words he corrected in print were, “And my heart throbbed39 with an exquisite41 bliss”. GOD grant that on that Christmas Eve when he laid his head back on his pillow and threw up his arms as he had been wont42 to do when very weary, some consciousness of duty done and Christian43 hope throughout life humbly44 cherished, may have caused his own heart so to throb40, when he passed away to his Redeemer’s rest!
He was found peacefully lying as above described, composed, undisturbed, and to all appearance asleep, on the twenty-fourth of December 1863. He was only in his fifty-third year; so young a man that the mother who blessed him in his first sleep blessed him in his last. Twenty years before, he had written, after being in a white squall:
And when, its force expended45, The harmless storm was ended, And, as the sunrise splendid Came blushing o’er the sea; I thought, as day was breaking, My little girls were waking, And smiling, and making A prayer at home for me.
Those little girls had grown to be women when the mournful day broke that saw their father lying dead. In those twenty years of companionship with him they had learned much from him; and one of them has a literary course before her, worthy46 of her famous name.
On the bright wintry day, the last but one of the old year, he was laid in his grave at Kensal Green, there to mingle47 the dust to which the mortal part of him had returned, with that of a third child, lost in her infancy48 years ago. The heads of a great concourse of his fellow-workers in the Arts were bowed around his tomb.
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writ
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| n.命令状，书面命令 | |
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generosity
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| n.大度，慷慨，慷慨的行为 | |
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interval
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| n.间隔，间距；幕间休息，中场休息 | |
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supremely
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| adv.无上地，崇高地 | |
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irresistibly
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| adv.无法抵抗地，不能自持地；极为诱惑人地 | |
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extravagant
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| adj.奢侈的；过分的；(言行等)放肆的 | |
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softened
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| （使）变软( soften的过去式和过去分词 )； 缓解打击； 缓和； 安慰 | |
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genial
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| adj.亲切的，和蔼的，愉快的，脾气好的 | |
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impulsive
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| adj.冲动的，刺激的；有推动力的 | |
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feigned
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| a.假装的，不真诚的 | |
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pretence
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| n.假装，作假；借口，口实；虚伪；虚饰 | |
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thoroughly
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| adv.完全地，彻底地，十足地 | |
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manly
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| adj.有男子气概的；adv.男子般地，果断地 | |
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simplicity
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| n.简单，简易；朴素；直率，单纯 | |
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standing
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| n.持续，地位；adj.永久的，不动的，直立的，不流动的 | |
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Oxford
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| n.牛津（英国城市） | |
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droll
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| adj.古怪的，好笑的 | |
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eldest
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| adj.最年长的，最年老的 | |
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bereavement
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| n.亲人丧亡，丧失亲人，丧亲之痛 | |
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munificent
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| adj.慷慨的，大方的 | |
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vivacity
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| n.快活，活泼，精神充沛 | |
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discourse
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| n.论文，演说；谈话；话语；vi.讲述，著述 | |
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quaint
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| adj.古雅的，离奇有趣的，奇怪的 | |
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delightful
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| adj.令人高兴的，使人快乐的 | |
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touching
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| adj.动人的，使人感伤的 | |
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ballads
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| 民歌，民谣，特别指叙述故事的歌( ballad的名词复数 )； 讴 | |
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accomplished
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| adj.有才艺的；有造诣的；达到了的 | |
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destined
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| adj.命中注定的；(for)以…为目的地的 | |
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29
perusing
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| v.读（某篇文字）( peruse的现在分词 )；（尤指）细阅；审阅；匆匆读或心不在焉地浏览（某篇文字） | |
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vigour
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| （=vigor）n.智力，体力，精力 | |
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wrought
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| v.引起；以…原料制作；运转；adj.制造的 | |
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picturesqueness
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fully
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| adv.完全地，全部地，彻底地；充分地 | |
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bestowed
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| 赠给，授予( bestow的过去式和过去分词 ) | |
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distress
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| n.苦恼，痛苦，不舒适；不幸；vt.使悲痛 | |
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caressed
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| 爱抚或抚摸…( caress的过去式和过去分词 ) | |
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remarkable
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| adj.显著的，异常的，非凡的，值得注意的 | |
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attained
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| （通常经过努力）实现( attain的过去式和过去分词 )； 达到； 获得； 达到（某年龄、水平、状况） | |
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throbbed
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| 抽痛( throb的过去式和过去分词 )； （心脏、脉搏等）跳动 | |
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throb
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| v.震颤，颤动；(急速强烈地)跳动，搏动 | |
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41
exquisite
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| adj.精美的；敏锐的；剧烈的，感觉强烈的 | |
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wont
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| adj.习惯于；v.习惯；n.习惯 | |
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43
Christian
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| adj.基督教徒的；n.基督教徒 | |
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44
humbly
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| adv. 恭顺地，谦卑地 | |
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45
expended
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| v.花费( expend的过去式和过去分词 )；使用（钱等）做某事；用光；耗尽 | |
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46
worthy
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| adj.(of)值得的，配得上的；有价值的 | |
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47
mingle
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| vt.使混合，使相混；vi.混合起来；相交往 | |
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48
infancy
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| n.婴儿期；幼年期；初期 | |
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