Page:The life of Captain Sir Richard F. Burton (IA b21778401).pdf/15

Rh life was consecrated by prayer, and during the last years of her life in England she seemed to live in communion with the invisible. I once expressed to her my wonder that she could have written the book in so short a time. She said, with all the earnestness of conviction, that she could never have done so alone; often when in doubt as to how to proceed she would seek help in prayer, and the help came; frequently when he wanted to look for a passage in one of her husband's books, or hunt up a reference, to find a missing letter or paper, she sought guidance in the same way, and the guidance came. No one could have convinced her that she wrote the book alone. Be that as it may, she wrote undoubtedly from the loftiest motives, and under the inspiration of a great and self-sacrificing love. It was her alabaster box of spikenard, very previous, and when she had made this last supreme offering to her husband's memory she felt that her life-work was done.

After the book was published Lady Burton's health gradually failed, and she died on the 24th of March 1896, and was buried in the Arab tent at Mortlake, by the side of him whom she loved so well. The story of her life I have told elsewhere. I only allude to it here because it was so fused with that of her husband one cannot mention one without the other.

Five years have passed since the first publication of this book, and already its object has been, to a great extent, accomplished. Burton is more famous in death than in life. It is generally recognised to-day that he was unfairly treated by successive Governments, and often misunderstood by the general public. Like another strange genius, Lord Beaconsfield, the best years of his life were passed fighting for recognition, and when recognition came it came too late. Yet in Burton's case this may not have been altogether the fault of those in authority. Some men are born out of due time: some are born too early, and some too late. Burton was born too late. He belonged to the age of Drake, Frobisher, and Raleigh. In the spacious days of Elizabeth he would have found a field wide enough for his energies. For the circumstances of his life, and the conventions of his age, he was altogether too big a man. He chafed and