Ionica | Page 5

clouded with anxieties and illness. But
he took great delight in the teaching of Greek to a class of girls, and his
attitude of noble resignation, tender dignity, and resolute interest in the
growing history of his race and nation is deeply impressive. He died in
1892, on June II, of a heart-complaint to which he had long been
subject.
In person William Cory was short and sturdy; he was strong and
vigorous; he was like the leader whom Archilochus desired, "one who
is compact of frame, showing legs that bend outward, standing firm
upon his feet, full of courage." He had a vigorous, massive head, with
aquiline nose, and mobile lips. He was extraordinarily near-sighted, and
used strong glasses, holding his book close to his eyes. He was
accustomed to bewail his limited vision, as hiding from him much
natural beauty, much human drama; but he observed more closely than
many men of greater clearness of sight, making the most of his limited
resources. He depended much upon a hearing which was
preternaturally acute and sensitive, and was guided as much by the
voice and manner, as by the aspect of those among whom he lived. He
had a brisk, peremptory mode of address, full of humorous mannerisms
of speech. He spoke and taught crisply and decisively, and uttered fine
and feeling thoughts with a telling brevity. He had strong common
sense, and much practical judgment.
He was intensely loyal both to institutions and friends, but never spared
trenchant and luminous criticisms, and had a keen eye for weakness in
any shape. He was formidable in a sense, though truly lovable; he had
neither time nor inclination to make enemies, and had a generous
perception of nobility of character, and of enthusiasms however
dissimilar to his own. He hankered often for the wider world; he would
have liked to have a hand in politics, and to have helped to make
history. He often desired to play a larger part; but the very stirrings of

regret only made him throw himself with intensified energy into the
work of his life. He lived habitually on a higher plane than others,
among the memories of great events, with a consciousness of high
impersonal forces, great issues, big affairs; and yet he held on with both
hands to life; he loved all that was tender and beautiful. He never lost
himself in ambitious dreams or abstract speculations. He was a
psychologist rather than a philosopher, and his interest and zest in life,
in the relationships of simple people, the intermingling of personal
emotions and happy comradeships, kept him from ever forming cynical
or merely spectatorial views of humanity. He would have been far
happier, indeed, if he could have practised a greater detachment; but, as
it was, he gathered in, like the old warrior, a hundred spears; like
Shelley he might have said--
"I fall upon the thorns of life; I bleed."
His is thus a unique personality, in its blending of intense mental
energy with almost passionate emotions. Few natures can stand the
strain of the excessive development of even a single faculty; and with
William Cory the qualities of both heart and head were over-developed.
There resulted a want of balance, of moral force; he was impetuous
where he should have been calm, impulsive where he should have been
discreet. But on the other hand he was possessed of an almost Spartan
courage; and through sorrow and suffering, through disappointment
and failure, he bore himself with a high and stately tenderness, without
a touch of acrimony or peevishness. He never questioned the love or
justice of God; he never raged against fate, or railed at circumstance.
He gathered up the fragments with a quiet hand; he never betrayed
envy or jealousy; he never deplored the fact that he had not realised his
own possibilities; he suffered silently, he endured patiently.
And thus he is a deeply pathetic figure, because his great gifts and high
qualities never had full scope. He might have been a great jurist, a great
lawyer, a great professor, a great writer, a great administrator; and he
ended as a man of erratic genius, as a teacher in a restricted sphere,
though sowing, generously and prodigally, rich and fruitful seed. With
great poetical force of conception, and a style both resonant and

suggestive, he left a single essay of high genius, a fantastic historical
work, a few books of school exercises. A privately printed volume of
Letters and Journals reveals the extraordinary quality of his mind, its
delicacy, its beauty, its wistfulness, its charm. There remains but the
little volume of verse which is here presented, which stands apart from
the poetical literature of the age. We see in these poems a singular and
original contribution to the poetry of