His Birthplace and its Influences. 1 1 



he was born will, I think, be apparent from 

 the following description of him written by 

 his widow, whose love for him has survived 

 and been intensified by the twenty-four 

 years which have elapsed since his death.* 

 It was from Cumberland that he acquired 

 the noble qualities with which he is credited 

 in the following sketch, to which any word 

 added by me would be superfluous, if not an 

 impertinence. 



" The Druid," writes his widow, " was a 

 man of iron will, and indomitable persever- 

 ance, and with absolutely no regard for the 

 ordinary comforts of life. He would rise at 

 daybreak, if his work called him to make 



* Dr. Smiles, the able biographer of " George Moore, 

 Merchant and Philanthropist," tells us in his pre- 

 face, that he was for a long time unwilling to write 

 the life of a man whom he had not known personally, 

 and who seemed to him to offer nothing but ordinary 

 and prosaic materials for treatment. " It was not," 

 he adds, " until Dr. Percival, head master of Clifton 

 College (now of Rugby School), called upon me, that 

 I ascertained something of the actual life and char- 

 acter of George Moore. He spoke to me of the man 

 and not of the warehouseman. He said in a letter 

 which I afterwards received from him : ' There is 

 so much genuine character in Cumberland folk that 



