4 SIR VICTOR BROOKE CHAP. 



" took the edge off all his pleasures." This tender, 

 gentle side of his character was but little realised even 

 by his most intimate friends, but how deeply it impressed 

 an observer is best shown in the following words written 

 to Lady Brooke by Dr. Bagnell, his wife's medical attend- 

 ant, after her husband's death : 



With a perfect appreciation of everything that is 

 holy, true, and just, he showed the most rare com- 

 bination of a mind filled with tender feelings and 

 affections, a body full of energy and vitality, and a 

 heart that knew no danger, no fear, no dread for 

 itself, only for those it loved ; a woman's tenderness 

 and devotion with a broad powerful grasp, not to be 

 conceived by those outside the inner life. 

 Such, in brief, are the numerous attainments he 

 was happy in possessing, and such are the qualities 

 that endeared him to so many people. With his 

 faults it is easy to deal tenderly. They were but few 

 and lost in the great breadth of his fine nature. 

 Impatient, and at times irascible, and given, from the 

 intense enthusiasm of his character, to think every one 

 must be as interested in any given subject as he was 

 himself, he sometimes led people to think he was a 

 little egotistical. But when we remember that he lost 

 his father at ten years of age, and at twenty-one came 

 into a high position and great estate, and all his life 

 had been a persona grata wherever he went, we can 

 only wonder he came out of it so unspoilt. How few of 

 us could have passed through the fire and retained the 

 simple generous character he did to the last day of 

 his life ! 



When all is said and done, the vast majority of 

 those who knew him will think of him in the words of 

 a friend of his, by no means given to gentle criticism : 

 " He was a most lovable man ! " 



