Page:Blackwood's Magazine volume 137.djvu/182

176 will, we should think, be regarded as their indispensable companion on the book-shelf.

Her later life was in one respect very singular. Lewes's care for her was so alert and prospective, that she may be said to have dwelt like some princess in a fairy tale, guarded by spells against annoyance. He conducted all business, even answered all letters for her to other than her intimate friends. He sifted the reviews of her works, that she might be hurt by no censure; he even warned correspondents against using too much freedom in criticism. His habits made him her constant companion – no small fret could elude his vigilance, and his chief happiness lay in ministering to her comfort. The modest mansion in St John's Wood was as quiet and secluded as if it stood on the outskirts of a village. Here her hours of work and study were absolutely sacred. On Sunday afternoons she was at home to visitors, and there were few of her eminent contemporaries who did not at one time or other come to offer her genuine homage. While enjoying the best of social intercourse at will, she held herself free from its exactions, the labours in which the public were so deeply interested forming ample ground for the exemption. When in need of fresher air, she and Lewes repaired to their country house, situated in a part of Surrey chosen for its agreeable qualities, and where many valued friends lived within a drive. Tennyson was one of these, and any records that may have been preserved of their meetings and their "wit-combats" will seem gold-lettered to posterity as it looks back on the Victorian age. Such a life is evidently what many sigh for but few attain. Indeed, had she been less sensitive, and her health less frail in later life, we should say she was altogether too sedulously sheltered from care. This was not the kind of life in which she received and stored up her early and fresh impressions. The artist who would describe his own time must keep touch with it, must receive its form and pressure, not in the study, but by actual contact with his fellows, by mingling in their affairs, by being penetrated with their hopes and fears, by knowing disappointment as well as success, by facing the difficulties no less than by enjoying the pleasures of life. But it is possible that, in the actual circumstances, devotion and encouragement, ease and leisure, were the necessary conditions for doing her work after the flush and buoyancy of youth were past. However this may be, it is certain that she was surrounded in a remarkable degree by all that can lend warmth and sunshine to the advance of life. The most anxious affection did not cease for long to surround her when she lost Lewes. Her marriage to the present biographer gave the most complete and secure promise of a serene evening. He had long been an intimate and dear friend, and, on the death of Lewes, had been prompt to afford such active sympathy as only a very uncommon devotion could inspire. Her correspondence after her marriage testifies how unceasing was his care for her, how acute and grateful her sense of it. But the union was of very short duration; she died within the twelvemonth, leaving only the consolation that her sixty-one years had been bright and happy to the close.