would have borne it. He came once to be my companion for a few days,
when I was suffering from a long period of depression and overwork. I
could do nothing except answer a few letters. I could neither write nor
read, and spent much of my time in the open air, and more in drowsing in
misery over an unread book. Hugh, after observing me for a little,
advised me to work quite deliberately, and to divide up my time among
various occupations. It would have been useless to attempt it, for
Nature was at work recuperating in her own way by an enforced
listlessness and dreariness. But I have often since then thought how
impossible it would have been for him to have endured such a condition.
He had nothing passive about him; and I feel that he had every right to
live his life on his own lines, to neglect warnings, to refuse advice. A
man must find out his own method, and take the risks which it may
involve. And though I would have done and given anything to have kept
him with us, and though his loss is one which I feel daily and
constantly, yet I would not have it otherwise. He put into his life an
energy of activity and enjoyment such as I have rarely seen. He gave his
best lavishly and ungrudgingly. Even the dreadful and tragical things
which he had to face he took with a relish of adventure. He has told me
of situations in which he found himself, from which he only saved
himself by entire coolness and decisiveness, the retrospect of which he
actually enjoyed. "It was truly awful!" he would say, with a shiver of
pleasing horror. But it was all worked into a rich and glowing tapestry,
which he wove with all his might, and the fineness of his life seems to
me to consist in this, that he made his own choices, found out the
channels in which his powers could best move, and let the stream gush
forth. He did not shelter himself fastidiously, or creep away out of the
glare and noise. He took up the staff and scrip of pilgrimage, and,
while he kept his eyes on the Celestial City, he enjoyed every inch of
the way, as well the assaults and shadows and the toils as the houses of