XVI 



HOME LIFE 409 



having given you a serious anxiety, and that you can 

 look forward with entire confidence to his playing the 

 man in the battle of life. I have tried to make you 

 feel your responsibilities and act independently as early 

 as possible — but, once for all, remember that I am not 

 only your father but your nearest friend, ready to help 

 you in all things reasonable, and perhaps in a few 

 unreasonable. 



This domestic happiness which struck others so 

 forcibly was one of the vital realities of his existence. 

 Without it his quick spirit and nervous temperament 

 could never have endured the long and often em- 

 bittered struggle — not merely with equanimity, but 

 with a constant growth of sympathy for earnest 

 humanity, which, in early days obscured from view 

 by the turmoil of strife, at length became apparent 

 to all as the tide of battle subsided. None realised 

 more than himself what the sustaining help and 

 comradeship of married life had wrought for him, 

 alike in making his life worth living and in making 

 his life's work possible. Here he found the pivot 

 of his happiness and his strength; here he recog- 

 nised to the full the care that took upon itself all 

 possible burdens and left his mind free for his greater 

 work. 



He had always a great tenderness for children. 

 "One of my earliest recollections of him," writes 

 Jeffery Parker, "is in connection with a letter he 

 wrote to my father, on the occasion of the death, in 

 infancy, of one of my brothers. 'Why,' he wrote, 

 'did you not tell us before that the child was 



