440

THE ART OF

war-gear—there is more life in them than in him.’ . . .

‘ But sorrowest thou not for thine own death when thoulookest on him?’ . . . ‘ How can I sorrow for that whichI cannot so much as think of? Bethink thee that when Iam alive I cannot think that I shall die, or believe in deathat all, although I know well that I shall die—I can butthink of myself as living in some other way. . . . No manthat is can conceive of not being; and I mind me that inthose stories of the old Danes, their common word for aman dying is to say, ‘ He changed his life.’ . . . ThoughI die and end, yet mankind yet liveth, therefore I end not,since I am a man ; and even so thou deemest, good friend ;or at the least even so thou doest, since now thou art readyto die in grief and torment rather than be unfaithful tothe fellowship, yea, rather than fail to work thine utmostfor it.’ ” To a man of his energy and incessant zeal tolabour for the advantage of his fellow creatures, the prospedtof his career possibly closing in a lingering invalidism wasspecially distasteful. Thus he wrote long ago in “ TheEarthly Paradise: ”

“ O Death-in-life, O sure pursuer, Change,

Be kind, be kind, and touch me not, till strange,

Changed too, thy face shows, when thy fellow DeathDelays no more to freeze my faltering breath!”

All too soon, then, as his end came, it is yet a matter forthankfulness to remember that this wish of his was notaltogether unfulfilled. Naturally robust though he was,the severe mental as well as bodily strain to which he hadsubjected himself unsparingly, more particularly duringthe busy period of Socialist propaganda, began eventuallyto tell upon him; and some few years before his death itwas impossible to ignore the fadl that he had overtaskedhis powers of endurance, and periods of rest had becomeimperative.

It was not, however, until February, 1896, that hisfriends began to have very serious cause for alarm. Hishealth then broke down, and though in the early summerhe seemed so much better that his ultimate recovery wasnot despaired of, he was never quite the same again. The