Page:The life and letters of Sir John Henniker Heaton bt. (IA lifelettersofsi00port).pdf/194



I've been watching your fight with an interested eye from far off, and have seen you getting your own way, inch by inch and foot by foot, with the notion that some day I'd do a set of verses about it. But it's more difficult (verses I mean) to do them than you think. Give me time and perhaps I shall be able to make something worthy of the new step. I can't do things in a short time.

For many years H. H. saw a great deal of W. T. Stead, and sorrowed deeply over his tragic death in the ill-fated "Titanic." Memory recalls a summer day in June when W. T. Stead, David Murray, R.A., Archdeacon Sinclair, and H. H. travelled down to Windsor together as fellow-guests of their mutual friend Henry Arthur Jones, the dramatist. W. T. Stead had the appearance of the Old Buccaneer: broad-brimmed hat, white hair and beard, and blue eyes of an unquenchable fire and vigour alternating with the sudden dreamy look of one who saw visions. He was in high spirits and his great laugh as he threw back his head was the whole-hearted laugh of a true Englishman.

H. H.'s friendship with Marconi was spread over many years, and each fresh triumph of wireless was watched with enthusiastic and affectionate wonder. The greatest magician of the age, for whom no honour can be sufficiently high, no reward adequate, counted H. H. among his earliest friends. His favourite advice to all young men was to secure happiness in life by marrying an Irish girl, and it was with especial pleasure that he heard of Marconi's approaching