Part 44 (1/2)

So on the last sad night of all Erect aled music out Lofty, aloof, viscontial

You struck a bootbath with a can, And with the can you struck the bath, There on the yellow gravel path, As gentleentleman

We met, we stood, we faced, we talked While those of baser birth withdrew; I told you of an Earl I knew; You said you thought the as corked;

And so we parted--on e of a perfect whole, A Viscount to the finger tips--

An ione; For nature red in tooth and claw Subsuuanodon

Yet ho know the Larger Love, Which separates the sheep and goats And segregates Scolecobrots, [1]

Believing where we cannot prove,

Deeht, And hides the poor in endless night, For thou, my Lord, art more than they

[Footnote 1: A word fro people who are eaten by worms]

It is a commonplace to say after ahe liked in life: it is nearly always exaggerated; but of Raymond Asquith the phrase would have been true

His oldest friend was Harold Baker,[Footnote: The Rt Hon Harold Baker] a man whose acadeeless affection and inti valued; but Raymond had reat sorrow in uish to his father and me The news of it came as a terrible shock to every one My husband's natural pride and interest in him had always been intense and ere never tired of discussing him ere alone: his personal charm and wit, his little faults and above all the success which so certainly awaited hi Street at a time when, had they been clear, certain events could never have taken place

When Rayave the doctor his flask to give to his father; it was placed by the side of his bed and never moved till we left Whitehall

I had not realised before hoerless a step-wife is when her husband isthe death of his child; and not for the first time I profoundly wished that Ray the many letters we received, this one froave my husband the most comfort:

33 ECCLESTON SQUARE, SW Sept 18, 1916

MY DEAR ASQUITH,

A generation has passed since Rayone make me feel for and with you even more than I would then Raymond has had a brilliant and unblee the heroic part in this war and he has died as a hero

If this life be all, it matters not whether its years be few or many, but if it be not all, then Ray that is not reater and ennobled by the quality and merit of his life and death

I would fain believe that those who die do not suffer in the separation from those they love here; that time is not to them what it is to us, and that to them the years of separation be they few or many will be but as yesterday

If so then only for us, who are left here, is the pain of suffering and the weariness of waiting and enduring; the one beloved is spared that There is so that it is we, not the loved one, that have the harder part

I grieve especially for Ray I fear e of how the feelings of your friends and the whole nation, and not of this nation only, for you is quickened and goes out to you will help you to continue the public work, which is now th Your courage I know never fails

Yours affectionately,

EDWARD GREY

Raymond Asquith was the bravest of the brave, nor did he ever co that fell to his lot while he was soldiering

It ht have been written of him: