in the most fascinating and delightful way, than the end
came. A short illness, followed by a rapid operation --
hopeless, or almost hopeless -- cut short this honourable
and gracious life. I was one of the very few people whom
Lord Arthur asked to see in the few days allowed him
between life and death. He wanted to see me out of
pure friendliness, to talk about his children and to show
me, as only such an act could, that he, like me, had hoped
much from our friendship. He was the kind of man who
would be sure to prefer saying this by deed rather than by
word.

But for the simplicity and essential nobility of charac-
ter which he possessed, he might well have sent for me to
see how a good man could die. There was everything to
strengthen and so to quiet one in the way in which he
faced the message which comes to all -- a message so
deeply dreaded by most of us, yet which, when it does
come, proves to be not a sentence, but a reprieve -- the
mandatory word that does not imprison us, but sets us
free, which flings the gates and lets us see the open heaven,
instead of the walls and vaulted ceiling of the cells of
which we have been the inhabitants.

But though the very last thing that Lord Arthur was
thinking about was the impression upon my mind, that
impression was intense both in kind and in degree. That
short last talk at his bedside, in which so little was said,
so much felt by both of us, has never left my memory. If
for no other reason, it must be recorded here for it had, I
feel, an essential if undefinable influence upon my life.

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