Memoir of a Brother. Thomas Smart Hughes

This Memoir was written for, and at the request of, the near relatives, and intimate friends, of the home-loving country gentleman, whose unlooked-for death had made them all mourners indeed. Had it been meant originally for publication, it would have taken a very different form. In compiling it, my whole thoughts were fixed on my own sons and nephews, and not on the public. It tells of a life with which indeed the public has no concern in one sense; for my brother, with all his ability and power of different kinds, was one of the humblest and most retiring of men; who just did his own duty, and held his own tongue, without the slightest effort or wish for fame or notoriety of any kind. In another sense, however, I do see that it has a meaning and interest for Englishmen in general, and have therefore consented to its publication in the usual way, though not without a sense of discomfort and annoyance at having the veil even partially lifted from the intimacies of a private family circle. For, in a noisy and confused time like ours, it does seem to me that most of us have need to be reminded of, and will be the better for bearing in mind, the reserve of strength and power which lies quietly at the nation’s call, outside the whirl and din of public and fashionable life, and entirely ignored in the columns of the daily press. The subject of this memoir was only a good specimen of thousands of Englishmen of high culture, high courage, high principle, who are living their own quiet lives in every corner of the kingdom, from John o’ Groat’s to the Land’s-End, bringing up their families in the love of God and their neighbour, and keeping the atmosphere around them clean, and pure and strong, by their example—men who would come to the front, and might be relied on, in any serious national crisis.

One is too apt to fancy, from the photographs of the nation’s life which one gets day by day, that the old ship has lost the ballast which has stood her in such good stead for a thousand years, and is rolling more and more helplessly, in a gale which shows no sign of abating, for her or any other national vessel, until at last she must roll over and founder. But it is not so. England is in less stress, and in better trim, than she has been in in many a stiffer gale.

The real fact is, that nations, and the families of which nations are composed, make no parade or fuss over that part of their affairs which is going right. National life depends on home life, and foreign critics are inclined to take the chronicles of our Divorce Court as a test by which to judge the standard of our home life, like the old gentleman who always spelt through the police reports to see “what the people were about.” An acquaintance, however, with any average English neighbourhood, or any dozen English families taken at random, ought to be sufficient to reassure the faint-hearted, and to satisfy them that (to use the good old formula) the Lord has much work yet for this nation to do, and the nation manliness and godliness enough left to do it all, notwithstanding superficial appearances.

A life without sensation or incident may therefore well form a more useful subject of study in such a time, than the most exciting narrative of adventure and success, the conditions being, that it shall have been truly lived, and faithfully told. Readers will judge for themselves whether the former condition has been fulfilled in this case: I wish I could feel the same confidence as to the latter. I can only say I have done my best.

T. H.

Dedication.

Table of Contents

TO MY NEPHEWS AND SONS.

My dear Boys,

It has pleased God to take to Himself the head of the family of which you are members. Most of you are too young to enter into the full meaning of those words “family” and “membership,” but you all remember with sore hearts, and the deepest feeling of love and reverence, the gentle, strong, brave man, whom you used to call father or uncle; and who had that wonderful delight in, and attraction for, young folk, which most very gentle and brave men have. You are conscious, I know, that a great cold chasm has suddenly opened in your lives—that strength and help has gone away from you, to which you knew you might turn in any of the troubles which boys, and very young men, feel so keenly. Well, I am glad that you feel that it is so: I should not have much hope of you if it were otherwise. The chasm will close up, and you will learn, I trust and pray, where to go for strength and help, in this and all other troubles.

It is very little that I can do for you. Probably you can do more for me; and my need is even sorer than yours. But what I can do I will. Several of you have asked me questions about your father and uncle, what we used to do, and think and talk about, when he and I were boys together. Well, no one can answer these questions better than I, for we were as nearly of an age as brothers can be—I was only thirteen months younger—and we were companions from our childhood. We went together to our first school, when I was nearly eight and he nine years old; and then on to Rugby together; and were never separated for more than a week until he went to Oxford, where I followed a year later. For the first part of my time there, in college, we lived in the same rooms, always on the same staircase; and afterwards in the same lodgings. From that time to the day of his death we lived in the most constant intimacy and affection. Looking back over all those years, I can call to mind no single unkind, or unworthy, or untruthful, act or word of his; and amongst all the good influences for which I have to be thankful, I reckon the constant presence and example of his brave, generous, and manly life as one of the most powerful and ennobling. If I can in any measure reproduce it for you, I know that I shall be doing you a good service; and helping you, in even more difficult

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