Memoirs of Sir Wemyss Reid 1842-1885 | Page 6

by all doctors.... He
partially recovered from that attack, though from that day he was
doomed to speedy death. I saw him in February for the last time, not
long before the end. He told me, as he always did, that he did not feel
amiss, but that his doctors all unanimously condemned him to a short
shrift; that his friend Sir Frederick Treves was putting him under a new
treatment, from which he hoped to derive some benefit; but that,
whatever happened, he should go on writing as if nothing were wrong
until the end came. That did not long tarry. In the evening of Thursday,
February 23rd, he was taken ill, and before ten o'clock on Sunday
morning he was dead. During the seventeen months which elapsed
from the time of the doom pronounced by his physicians until its
fulfilment, Wemyss Reid so demeaned himself that none could have
penetrated his secret. He was as gay and high in spirit, as strenuous in
work, as thoughtful for others, as ever; so that those who knew the fatal
truth could not bring themselves to believe it. He was at work for the
Nineteenth Century the day before he was taken with his final attack.
But he himself, cheerful and smiling, never lost the certainty that death
hung over him by a thread.
"So much for his courage; and now for the other note that I would
touch--his friendship. His ideal of friendship was singularly lofty and
generous. He was the devoted and chivalrous champion of those he
loved; he took up their cause as his own, and much more than his own;
he was the friend of their friends and the enemy of their enemies. No
man ever set a higher value on this high connection, which, after all,
whether brought about by kinship, or sympathy, or association, or
gratitude, or stress, is under Heaven the surest solace of our poor
humanity; and so it coloured and guided the life of Wemyss Reid. His
chief works were all monuments to that faith; it inspired him in tasks
which he knew would be irksome and which could scarcely be
successful, or which, at least, could ill satisfy his own standard. This is
a severe test for a man of letters, but he met it without fail.... All this
seems lame and tame enough when I read it over. But it was true and
vivid when Wemyss Reid was living, and giving to his friends the high
example of a brave and unselfish life. Among them, his memory will be
a precious fact, and an inheritance long after any obituary notice is
forgotten. It will live as long as they live; he would scarcely have cared

to be remembered by others." Lord Rosebery's kindness to my
brother--it was constant, delicate, and unwavering--can never be
forgotten by any of his relatives. He was the first visitor to the house of
mourning on Sunday, February 26th; he came in haste, with the hope
that he might still be in time to see my brother alive.
Here, perhaps, is the place to mention some other of his friends: I mean,
of course, those with whom he was most intimate in his closing years.
It may be I have forgotten some; if so, I need scarcely add that it is
without intention. But I do not like to end without at least recalling his
close relations with Lord Burghclere, Mr. Bryce, Sir Henry Fowler, Mr.
Edmund Robertson, Sir Henry Roscoe, Sir Norman Lockyer, Sir
Frederick Treves, Sir John Brunner, Principal Fairbairn, Dr. Guinness
Rogers, the Rev. R. H. Hadden, Mr. W. H. Macnamara, Mr. Douglas
Walker, Mr. J. C. Parkinson, Mr. G. A. Barkley, Mr. Charles Mathews,
Mr. J. A. Duncan, Mr. Edwin Bale, Mr. Barry O'Brien, Mr. Herbert
Paul, Mr. J. A. Spender, and last, but certainly not least, Mr. Malcolm
Morris, who was with him at the end. James Payn, William Black, Sir
John Robinson represent the losses of the last few years of his life; all
of them were men with whom--literature and politics apart--he had
much in common.
It is impossible to cite the Press comments on the morrow of my
brother's death, but room at least must be found for one of them--the
generous tribute of his friend Mr. J. A. Spender in the _Westminster
Gazette_:--
"I well remember how bravely and serenely he bore his death-sentence
and how modestly he communicated it to his friends, as if an apology
were needed for speaking of anything so personal. And then he picked
himself up and started again, determined that his work should go
forward and his interests lose none of their edge, though his days were
short. He was the last man in the world to think of such a thing;