48o 



The Review of Reviews. 





The Maiden Tribute Sensation, 1885. 



Scene outside the P.M.G. office. 



" Old Stead only feared God. He feared no one else. 

 He told me, when I was at the Admiralty, to remember 

 Nebuchadnezzar, but he never needed to be told. He 

 was humble-minded from his mother's womb." 



In the early days of their friendship Rhodes said 

 to me, speaking of Stead, " He is the greatest patriot 

 I know ; England is his home, and every foot of ground 

 over which the Tiriti.sli flag flics is his native land." 



No man in our time had talked with so many people, 

 from the highest to the lowest. No man was ever more 

 trusted by those with whom he talked, and no man 

 was more deserving of confidence. He was highly 

 tested, when his profession is considered, and his 

 intimate knowledge of secret things is appreciated. 

 The test never failed. For some reason difficult to 

 exjjlain men and women spoke to him with unusual 

 freedom from reserve. Yet even the secrets of his 

 enemies were safe. 



During the thirty years of our friendship we had 

 many strong differences of opinion, but there was no 



I 

 subject, however dear to him, which he could noj 



discuss with a critic, for he gave every man credit fo' 



a desire to arrive at the truth. He, indeed, went mucl 



further. I often told him that he was a fanatica 



believer in the veracity of the average man, and thai 



this childlike faith made him an easy dupe. He wouk 



laughingly agree, but not that he was the dupe of hi: 



own weakness. " You will die in the workhouse.' 



" Very possibly, but I would rather die in the work 



house than think that man a liar." 



There seemed to be some magical tie that bound hiir 

 to the workers in every sphere. I have heard men sa) 

 that Mr. Stead bored them. These men were th^ 

 talkers. As Dr. Clifford truly said a few evenings since! 

 Stead was a man who did not want to talk ; he wantec 

 to get things done. No man who wanted to get things 

 done, whether Dr. Liddon, Cardinal Manning, General' 

 Booth, Cecil Rhodes, Lord Grey, or Lord Fisher, wa^ 

 ever bored with Stead. I remember him telling me that 

 the loss of some men was irreparable, and he named; 

 Cardinal Manning. We who knew Stead can now! 

 understand his meaning. 



Up to the end of his days there was no just cause to 

 which his heart was closed, and no new idea from which 

 his mind recoiled. He was young to his dying day — a' 

 glorious epitaph. ' Some instinct told him that he woulti 

 die " in his boots." He was fond of saying this. Andj 

 so he did. ' 



I was concerned always with his practical side, and 

 he was the most help-giving man I have ever known.l 

 You could not appeal to him in vain. He not only gave' 

 you what he had, but he gave you the best that he had.i 



His mystical side — I am not speaking of his simplel 

 faith, but of the spiritual world in which he believed — I 

 wearied me, and I often told him so. H& never showed' 

 resentment. After and in connection with his death,: 

 I happened to speak lightly to our old Scots gardener! 

 of the spirit world in which Mr. Stead so ardently' 

 believed. " Ah, well," was the reply, " it is one of the 

 weaknesses of human nature to speak too critically of 

 things which are on the borders of human knowledge." 

 How my friend would have laughed at this palpable hit . 



I can add nothing more. In a fine concise phrase, 

 Mr. Stead was described within a few days of his death 

 as " that hrilliant. jervent man." So he was. I^rilliant 

 in imagination, brilliant in expression, briHiant in 

 battle, and extraordinarily fervent in spirit, and, above 

 all, there was his Manliood. 



EARL GRE"^ (Speaking at the Press Fund Dinner). 



There is. one eminent journalist to whom I should journalist crusader. I refer to W. T. Stead, who hasi 

 like to be permitted to refer, as he embodied perhaps found his last resting-place where Mr. Clarvin has 

 more fully than any other the characteristics of the -aid, with n touch of genius, he would have himself 



