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Charles B. Goring, 1870—1919 
And, therefore, for this reason, and also because on this occasion I can trust neither 
niy memory, nor my self-control, I hope you will forget — won't even see — this bit 
of paper between us. 
I want to say, first, why I am speaking at all. There are two reasons. One is 
that I want to say something about my husband which may, perhaps, for a few 
instants, trace an outline of him upon the air, for you as well as for me — which 
may, for a moment, mark out his features for us, give us a glimmer of himself. 
That is one reason. The other is that I want to make, at his grave-side, and in 
the knowledge of death, certain affirmations. 
I have great difficulty in expressing myself here. I will ask you for your 
generosity with your tolerance. I ask it the more particularly because I know 
there is at least one amongst you — and probably there are more than one — who 
will find my attitude and desire foreign to his own. 
To this person, who has my respect, affection, gratitude, as I hope he knows, 
I want to say that, though I understand his inability to speak to us here today 
about my husband — and, in a way, I love him for that inability — yet I do regret 
it ; and also I do not accept his point of view. 
My regrets are for the fiict that his silence deprives us of a criticism, an 
appreciation of my husband — of my husband's scientific mind and work especially — 
which no one else could give with equal authority, sincerity and eloquence. So 
there is room enough for regret I think.... And then also, as I said, I do not accept 
my friend's point of view, though I can salute it for its dignity. 
His view is, I understand, that reticence, and silence, and solitude best suit the 
great occasions of human experience — those of grief and loss, particularly. / feel — 
I more than feel : I believe — the opposite. I believe in Voltaire's saying : " Le 
but de I'homme c'est Taction." Action means words as well as deeds. I believe 
that for whatever other purposes we may also possess life, there is a secret injunction 
upon us — within us — to express things : to do, to make, to show. And it seems to 
me — it is more than feeling : it is a sort of moral ui-ging — that when the great 
emotional experiences come to us, we ought to give them some outward, visible 
sign : Form : form, in accordance with that law that, as I said just now, seems to 
me to impose action upon us during our humanity : form that is beautiful. 
I have felt, then, in the great experience which has just come to me — the 
greatest I shall ever know — that unless I am to be false to my own instincts, and 
a coward to my own truth, I must testify by some outer form, and beauty of 
symbol, to the quality of my husband's spirit, and the sacredness of his memory, at 
the hour of the burial of his body. 
Feeling, and believing this, I realise the disadvantage at which we stand — we 
who are Fi'eethinkers — when, for our great occasions, we need a ceremonial, 
dignified, harmonious, simple. There, all the Churches, who have had time to grow 
old and beautiful, have the advantage of us. Their poets have had time to shape 
inarticulate cries and struggling aspirations into pathetic and stately ritual. Their 
artists have had time to bring colour, and line and music to the spaces set aside 
