It was not until they were seated at the dinner-table that a striking change in the color and expression of his face startled my aunt. Upon her asking him if he were ill, he answered “Yes, very ill; I have been very ill for the last hour.” But when she said that she would send for a physician hestopped her, saying that he would go on with dinner, and afterward to London.
He made an earnest effort to struggle against the seizure which was fast coming over him, and continued to talk, but incoherently and very indistinctly. It being now evident that he was in a serious condition, my aunt begged him to go to his room before she sent for medical aid. “Come and lie down,” she entreated. “Yes, on the ground,” he answered indistinctly. These were the last words that he uttered. As he spoke, he fell to the floor. A couch was brought into the dining-room, on which he was laid, a messenger was dispatched for the local physician, telegrams were sent to all of us and to Mr. Beard. This was at a few minutes after six o’clock. I was dining at a house some little distance from my sister’s home. Dinner was half over when I received a message that she wished to speak to me. I found her in the hall with a change of dress for me and a cab in waiting. QuicklyI changed my gown, and we began the short journey which brought us to our so sadly-altered home. Our dear aunt was waiting for us at the open door, and when I saw her face I think the last faint hope died within me.
All through the night we watched him—my sister on one side of the couch, my aunt on the other, and I keeping hot bricks to the feet which nothing could warm, hoping and praying that he might open his eyes and look at us, and know us once again. But he never moved, never opened his eyes, never showed a sign of consciousness through all the long night. On the afternoon of the ninth the celebrated London physician, Dr. Russell Reynolds, (recently deceased), was summoned to a consultation by the two medical men in attendance, but he could only confirm their hopeless verdict. Later, in the evening of this day, at ten minutes past six, we saw a shudder pass over our dear father, he heaved a deep sigh, a large tear rolled down his faceand at that instant his spirit left us. As we saw the dark shadow pass from his face, leaving it so calm and beautiful in the peace and majesty of death, I think there was not one of us who would have wished, could we have had the power, to recall his spirit to earth.
I made it my duty to guard the beloved body as long as it was left to us. The room in which my dear father reposed for the last time was bright with the beautiful fresh flowers which were so abundant at this time of the year, and which our good neighbours sent to us so frequently. The birds were singing all about and the summer sun shone brilliantly.
“And may there be no sadness of farewellWhen I embark.For though when from out our bourne of Time and PlaceThe flood may bear me far,I hope to see my Pilot face to faceWhen I have crossed the bar.’
“And may there be no sadness of farewellWhen I embark.For though when from out our bourne of Time and PlaceThe flood may bear me far,I hope to see my Pilot face to faceWhen I have crossed the bar.’
Those exquisite lines of Lord Tennyson’sseem so appropriate to my father, to his dread of good-byes, to his great and simple faith, that I have ventured to quote them here.
On the morning after he died, we received a very kind visit from Sir John Millais, then Mr. Millais, R.A. and Mr. Woolner, R.A. Sir John made a beautiful pencil drawing of my father, and Mr. Woolner took a cast of his head, from which he afterwards modelled a bust. The drawing belongs to my sister, and is one of her greatest treasures. It is, like all Sir John’s drawings, most delicate and refined, and the likeness absolutely faithful to what my father looked in death.
You remember that when he was describing the illustrations of Little Nell’s death-bed he wrote: “I want it to express the most beautiful repose and tranquillity, and to have something of a happy look, if death can.” Surely this was what his death-bed expressed—infinite happiness and rest.
As my father had expressed a wish to be buried in the quiet little church-yard at Shorne, arrangements were made for the interment to take place there. This intention was, however, abandoned, in consequence of a request from the Dean and chapter of Rochester Cathedral that his bones might repose there. A grave was prepared and everything arranged when it was made known to us, through Dean Stanley, that there was a general and very earnest desire that he should find his last resting-place in Westminster Abbey. To such a tribute to our dear father’s memory we could make no possible objection, although it was with great regret that we relinquished the plan to lay him in a spot so closely identified with his life and works.
The only stipulation which was made in connection with the burial at Westminster Abbey was that the clause in his will which read: “I emphatically direct that I be buried in an inexpensive, unostentatious andand strictly private manner,” should be strictly adhered to, as it was.
At midday on the fourteenth of June a few friends and ourselves saw our dear one laid to rest in the grand old cathedral. Our small group in that vast edifice seemed to make the beautiful words of our beautiful burial service even more than usually solemn and touching. Later in the day, and for many following days, hundreds of mourners flocked to the open grave, and filled the deep vault with flowers. And even after it was closed Dean Stanley wrote: “There was a constant pressure to the spot and many flowers were strewn upon it by unknown hands, many tears shed from unknown eyes.”
Charles Dickens’ Grave
And every year on the ninth of June and on Christmas day we find other flowers strewn by other unknown hands on that spot so sacred to us, as to all who knew and loved him. And every year beautiful bright-coloured leaves are sent to us from acrossthe Atlantic, to be placed with our own flowers on that dear grave; and it is twenty-six years now since my father died!
And for his epitaph what better than my father’s own words:
“Of the loved, revered and honoured head, thou canst not turn one hair to thy dread purposes, nor make one feature odious. It is not that the hand is heavy and will fall down when released; it is not that the heart and pulse are still; but that the hand was open, generous and true, the heart brave, warm and tender, and the pulse a man’s. Strike! shadow, strike! and see his good deeds springing from the wound, to sow the world with life immortal.”
“Of the loved, revered and honoured head, thou canst not turn one hair to thy dread purposes, nor make one feature odious. It is not that the hand is heavy and will fall down when released; it is not that the heart and pulse are still; but that the hand was open, generous and true, the heart brave, warm and tender, and the pulse a man’s. Strike! shadow, strike! and see his good deeds springing from the wound, to sow the world with life immortal.”
the end.
Ex Libris Roxburghe Press
[15]When I write about my aunt, or “Auntie,” as no doubt I may often have occasion to do, it is of the auntpar excellence, Georgina Hogarth. She has been to me ever since I can remember anything, and to all of us, the truest, best and dearest friend, companion and counsellor. To quote my father’s own words: “The best and truest friend man ever had.”