malady made progress, though there were good times as well as bad, and his eager love of beauty, now as always, brought him moments of oblivion and delight, when he sat among the pines, looking out over mountain and sea. The hope of getting better never left him, and the smallest respite roused in him fresh projects of work. In June, 1897, he and his wife reached Manchester again after their long absence, and Arnold hoped he might resume work again in the autumn. But, instead, the summer was marked by a serious operation, and all the later months of the year were full of suffering. In January, 1898, however, he wrote for the Fellows of King's College, Cambridge, a criticism on a Roman History Dissertation, sent in for a King's Fellowship, and was warmly thanked by the College for the care and fulness with which it was done. For a few weeks afterwards there was a gleam of improvement. He struggled down once or twice to the Guardian office, did some work, and seemed none the worse. But March brought another operation, which did nothing to relieve him, and so the weary months went on. His wife's diary shows that during the summer there were occasionally painless and happy days. He lay out in his hammock in the Nelson Street garden, during August, doing a little work now and then, and sometimes there is an entry, made doubly pathetic by what followed, like that of October 4th. "W. came in to dinner, sat at bottom of table, and was his delightful self, in great spirits." In November he made a desperate effort to take up night-work again, only to find it quite impossible, and at last it was evident both to himself, and to the owner and editor of the Guardian, that some fresh arrangement must be made. He resigned his post, the Guardian allowing him a pension; and the doctors urged him to try a milder climate than Manchester. The separation from the Guardian was a sore grief to him; but the suffering he had gone through had gradually weaned him from his work, and he let himself hope that time and rest would make it possible for him to do occasional writing for his beloved newspaper in the future, though under changed conditions. Universal kindness was shown him in Manchester. His colleagues on the Guardian wrote him a joint letter of farewell, accompanying the gift of a silver vase, a reproduction of one in the famous treasure of Bosco Reale : "In token of our very deep sympathy and affection, and of our recognition of the part you have played in making the paper what it is. Some of us, who may say that we have been your pupils here, feel that we owe more to you than it is possible to express, and wish to thank you from our hearts for your unfailingly wise and generous help and counsel. We all unite in admiration of your work as a journalist, of your loyalty and kindness to your colleagues, and, will you allow us to add, of the splendid courage with which you have borne the sufferings of the last three years." Arnold wrote in reply: "Dear friends and colleagues, I cannot thank you as I would wish for your beautiful gift and letter. But I shall always prize both as among my very dearest possessions. I shall never read the list of names appended to your letter without recalling some pleasant association with each one of them, whether they be of my seniors, contemporaries, or juniors, and without a vivid realisation of the part which each has taken in the development of the great newspaper to which we are all attached. It is my belief that an even wider influence than it has yet attained, lies before the Guardian, and it will always be one of the chief interests and pleasures of my life to watch-not without a sigh of envy !-the share contributed by each one of you to its authority and usefulness. Yours with all grateful affection, W. T. ARNOLD." Thus closed the main chapter of his life. What remained was an epilogue, full of pathos, full also of noble endurance; and not without its intervals of respite and happiness, when, to use his own expression, the "black crow" of gnawing pain spread its wings and departed, and in its stead "a perching dove" in the shape of an easy day or hour, would descend on him, giving full play to all his old power of mind and heart, and awaking in those who watched him the vain hope that after all the worst of the disease might pass away, and be succeeded by a period, perhaps a long period, of comparative ease. In May, 1899, he and his wife settled in a little house in Carlyle Square, Chelsea. An upstairs library received all his cherished books, and Roman history collections. It looked west over a pleasant square garden, and here, either on his sofa, or in a deep armchair, he spent most of his days, tenderly visited and remembered by his old friends, and making many new ones. Mr. Prothero, the editor of the Quarterly, and Mrs. Prothero were among the former; Mr. Haldane and M. Augustin Filon, the London correspondent of the Débats, first became personally acquainted with him after his move to London; while with Mr. St. Loe Strachey, his colleagues Mr. Hawke, Mr. J. B. Atkins and Mr. Leonard Hobhouse, Mr. Henry James, the late Mr. George Murray Smith, the well-known publisher, Mr. G. W. E. Russell, Lady Oakeley, an old Manchester friend, and others who had known him in youth or at Manchester, he renewed or strengthened links already formed; intimate friends like Miss Eleanor Sellar, or his frequent visitor Mlle. Souvestre, and his kinsman Dr. Adolphus Ward, saw him whenever they could, and brought him books, news and precious sympathy. Mr. Haldane writes to me : "I have the most vivid recollections of my visits to your brother. His interest in both German literature and German philosophy was very keen, and his talk turned much on these themes. Goethe as a thinker was a subject that much attracted him, and had he lived, I feel pretty sure that he would have written on this aspect of Goethe's personality. We talked also of modern Liberalism. Although he was then an invalid and could hardly move, the topic inspired him with energy, and he would discuss things as vigorously as though he had daily been listening to the debates in the House of Commons. His was a rare gift-the keenness which comes of concentration; and whether the talk was of literature or of affairs, the same qualities appeared in all he said-sincerity and fearlessness. It is not often that this type of man appears among us, and society is the poorer when one such is taken away." And Sir Ian Hamilton has very kindly sent me the following account of a conversation he had with my brother, early in 1903. The historian and the soldier were evidently drawn to each other by a common openness and freshness of mind. "Dear Mrs. Ward, "Tidworth House, Andover, "Yes, I have a vivid recollection of the general effect produced on me by my encounter with the strong and sympathetic personality of your brother, but I fear that this attempt to give an account of the event will seem to you very slight and inadequate. After so long a lapse of time details have got blurred in my memory and outlines blunted, although the pleasure and profit received remain, and ever will remain, a source of real gratitude. "I went to see Mr. Arnold about certain parallels between English and Roman history which were then very much in my mind. I wished to give them precision and point by consulting a competent authority concerning the Roman frontier provinces; the methods of keeping the legions up to strength in foreign quarters, and the characters of Augustus and Tiberius. Here my fortune led me, through the good offices of a mutual friend, to pay the, to me, memorable visit to your brother which you now ask me to describe. 6 Directly I arrived we plunged into a discussion concerning the parallel offered by the Roman Empire to our own, and Mr. Arnold gave me some papers he had written on the subject, as well as some German pamphlets which proved quite invaluable. All through this part of our interview he seemed to prefer to make me expound my theories whilst he kept the conversation alive by corrections or suggestions. When he did speak he was delightfully to the point, and I felt that his words were indeed golden, each of them expressing a sincere and well-considered conviction. 66 But although I had come to talk about Rome, as a matter of fact the greater part of our interview was on the subject of South Africa. The way of it was this. I admired a photograph on the mantelpiece; a photograph of the picture by Velasquez illustrating the surrender of Breda. Your brother made some illuminating remarks on the gracious, gentle, chivalrous |