Last Years. 395 



to walk about or to read or talk to any extent, or even to 

 play games. I pass my hours on the sofa wearily enough, 

 as you may imagine. What little work 1 do is at the Auto- 

 biography. 



Though the day suggests it, it is absurd for me to wish 

 you, or for you to wish me, a happy New Year. There is 

 not much happiness remaining in store for either of us. 



Pray dictate a few lines when you get this. 



Ever yours, Herbert Spencer. 



This sad letter found Youmans on his death-bed. 

 On the 1 8th of January he passed away without pain, 

 retaining even to the last something of the blithe drol- 

 lery that w^as always so charming. His burial place is 

 a beautiful site at Woodlawn. 



During Youmans's long illness abundant testimony 

 was borne to his singular capacity for friendship ; con- 

 stant inquiries, anxious and sympathetic, came not 

 only from within the bounds of the city w^here he 

 lived and laboured but from distant States and prov- 

 inces — from beyond the sea. His friendship had a 

 rare quality : not only was it manifested in counsels 

 well considered, and in a generosity lavish in compari- 

 son with his means, but in a constant thoughtfulness 

 which deemed no service too slight to be w^orth ren- 

 dering. He was always magnanimous, patient, slow 

 to take offence, an ingenious framer of excu«=es for 

 others. To forfeit his good-will demanded an un- 

 usual case of meanness or wickedness. Mere folly or 

 failure in the conventional sense would not do it. If 

 he ascertained anything to the discredit of an ac- 

 quaintance he merely deducted it from what he knew 

 in his favour — he never let it cancel a good record, as 

 so many people do. 



