Appreciations 
301 
provide it. I have said that his attitude to life and its problems was fearless. 
Biit it was more than that : it was challenging and ardent. Had there been nothing 
to probe and inquire into, he would not have been the happy man he was ; for he 
was a born inquirer — inquisitor even — and mistrusted all traditional face-values. 
Exactly how I came to be admitted to Goring's circle I never understood then, 
and cannot now fathom. Because where he and his friends brought to their dis- 
cussions and disputations knowledge and seriousness, I had nothing but instinct 
and impatience. But they suffered me, and I was permitted to sit on the outskirts 
and listen, and now and then to interrupt. What I chiefly remember of those 
evenings — at all kinds of places — at Highgate, at Hampstead, in rooms near the 
Museum, on the boat to Margate, on the Broads, — what I chiefly remember is 
Charles in argument : eagei", stimulating, vivid, humorous, always gently reasonable 
and never losing sight of the main proposition. I suppose he was the honestest 
and most understandingly tolerant man that ever lived. He never trimmed ; he 
rarely condemned ; and he had no fear. No fact was too stark anfl naked for him ; 
indeed, what he wanted was stark and naked facts. We would all have our say — 
some of us solid and some of us fluid — and then he would deal with us, with quiet . 
Socratic questionings ; and all the while we would see, burning within his beautiful 
workmanlike brain, the soft steady flame of that lamp of enthusiasm which was 
never to be dimmed until a few weeks ago it was all too soon extinguished : 
enthusiasm for the truth, wherever found. 
Of what dark passages that lamp was to illumine it is not for me to speak. 
There are others who have authority. But that no sweeter nature was ever allied 
to a passion for scientific investigation I feel myself to have the right to affirm. 
E. V. Lucas. 
June 17, 1919. 
II. Charles Goring as Humanist. 
In asking you all to come here today, I have done what seems to me a right 
thing to do, and a beautiful one : for, with your presence, I have made a circle 
round my husband's spirit of those minds and hearts most intimate with his, and 
most valued by him.... You all loved him; he loved everyone of you. With each 
one of you he had a separate and private friendship.. . .It seems to me that I can do 
him no greater honour on this day than to give him what you have let me give him 
by coming here — your undivided thought of him, your clear memory, and the warm 
and poignant tenderness that I well know possesses each heart here at the very 
mention of his name — Charles Goring. 
I must ask you to forgive me if I read from this paper what I have to say, 
instead of speaking it, in a more natural manner. I should not find any difficulty 
in speaking to each one of you separately. It seems absurd that, simply because 
you are all here together, in a number, that I should find it difficult. Yet so it is. 
