Part 44 (1/2)
[117] Dr. Anderson, who had been for nearly thirty years a true and devoted friend.
During her illness she had spoken confidently of recovery, but the night before her death she realized quite clearly that the end was near. Her son and daughter were with her; and just before she sank into a last sleep she spoke, in a firm clear voice, words of love and faith. Her mind had remained unclouded, and her end was as calm and peaceful as those who loved her could have wished. She died on January 17, 1898.
CHAPTER XIV
The immense number of letters received by Lady Russell's son and daughter, from men and women of all cla.s.ses and creeds, bore striking testimony to the widespread and reverent devotion felt for her memory. Only very few selections will be given here. The first letter--written on the day of her death--is from Mr. Farrington, the respected minister of the Richmond Free Church, who had known Lady Russell intimately for many years.
_Rev. Silas Farrington to Lady Agatha Russell_
_January_ 17, 1898
To me your mother has become more and more an inspiration--a kind of tower of cheerful courage and strength. By her steadfast mental and moral bravery, by the suns.h.i.+ne she has been beneath the heavy clouds that have been sweeping over her, she has made one ashamed of the small things that troubled him and rebuked his petty discontent and repining. No one can ever be told how much I both have honoured and loved her for the very greatness of her n.o.ble spirit.
_Rev. Stopford A. Brooke to Lady Agatha Russell_
_January_ 18, 1898
How little I thought when I saw Lady Russell last [118] that I should see her no more! She looked so full of life, and her interest in all things was so keen and eager that I never for a moment thought her old or linked to her lite the imagination of death. It is a sore loss to lose one so fresh, so alive, so ardent in all good and beautiful things, and it must leave you in a great loneliness.... How well, how n.o.bly she lived her life! It shames us to think of all she did, and yet it kindles us so much that we lose our shame in its inspiration.
[118] On October 31, 1897.
_Mr. Frederic Harrison to Lady Agatha Russell_
_February_ 16, 1898
...The news of the great sorrow which has fallen on you came upon my wife and myself as a dreadful surprise.... Over and over again I tried to say to the world outside all that I felt of the n.o.ble nature and the grand life of your mother, but every time I tried my pen fell from my hand. I was too sad to think or write; full only of the sense of the friend whom I had lost, and of the great example she has left to our generation. She has fulfilled her mission on earth, and all those who have known her--and they are very many--will all their lives be sustained by the memory of her courage, dignity, and truth. She had so much of the character of the Roman matron--a type we know so little nowadays--who, being perfect in all the beauty of domestic life, yet even more conspicuously raised the public life of her time. I shall never, while I have life, forget the occasions this last summer and autumn when I had been able to see more of her than ever before, and especially that last hour I spent with her, when you were away at Weston, the memory of which now comes back to me like a death-bed parting. To have known her was to ride above the wretched party politics to which our age is condemned. I cannot bear to think of all that this bereavement means to you. It must be, and will remain, irreparable.
_Mr. James Bryce [119] to Lady Agatha Russell_
_March_ 10, 1898
Your mother always seemed to me one of the most n.o.ble and beautiful characters I had ever known--there was in her so much gentleness, so much firmness, so much earnestness, so ardent a love for all high things and all the best causes. One always came away from seeing her struck afresh by these charms of nature, and feeling the better for having seen how old age had in no way lessened her interest in the progress of the world, her faith in the triumph of good.
[119] The Right Hon. James Bryce, British Amba.s.sador at Was.h.i.+ngton.
_Mrs. Sinclair to Mr. Rollo Russell_
_January_, 1900
I loved and honoured my dear lady more than any one I ever served.
In my long life of service, where all had been good and kind to me, she was the dearest and best.
The funeral service was held on the 21st of January in the village church at Chenies, where her husband had been buried among his ancestors. The Burial Service of the Church of England, the solemnity and beauty of which she had always deeply felt, was read in the presence of many friends and relations a.s.sembled to pay their last tribute of respect to her memory.
Not long before her death Lady Russell had written these lines:
O shadowy form majestic, nearer gliding, And ever nearer! Thou whose silent tread Not ocean, chasm, or mountain can delay, Not even hands in agony outstretched, Or bitterest tears of breaking hearts, that fain Would stay thy dread approach to those most dear.