Still a stripling he encountered Poverty, and suffered long, Gathering force from every effort Till he knew his arm was strong. Then his heart and life he offered To his radiant mistress--Truth. Never thought or dream of faltering Marred the promise of his youth. So he rode forth to defend her, And her peerless worth proclaim; Challenging each recreant doubter Who aspersed her spotless name. First upon his path stood _Ignorance_, Hideous in his brutal might; Hard the blows and long the battle Ere the monster took to flight. Then, with light and fearless spirit, _Prejudice_ he dared to brave, Hunting back the lying craven To her black sulphureous cave. Followed by his servile minions, _Custom_, the old Giant, rose; Yet he, too, at last was conquered By the good Knight's weighty blows. Once again he rose a conqueror, And, though wounded in the fight, With a dying smile of triumph Saw that Truth had gained her right. On his failing ear re-echoing Came the shouting round her throne; Little cared he that no future With her name would link his own. Spent with many a hard-fought battle Slowly ebbed his life away, And the crowd that flocked to greet her Trampled on him where he lay. Gathering all his strength he saw her Crowned and reigning in her pride, Looked his last upon her beauty, Raised his eyes to God--and died." --A. A. PROCTER. CHAPTER XI. THE AFTERGLOW. It was at this time that the Prince Consort died, and England was full of mourning. Lord Shaftesbury speaks, in his diary of December 16, 1861, of that national loss, and then alludes to the death of my grandfather in these words:-- "I hear, too, that my valued friend and coadjutor in efforts for the sanitary improvement of England is gone--the learned, warm-hearted, highly-gifted Southwood Smith." But the work he had set on foot and the principles he had established did not end with his life. They have gone on with an ever-increasing vitality to this day. The efforts he made for the non-employment of women and young children in mines have resulted in the entire cessation of the practice; while his work for the provision of proper schooling for factory children has culminated now in a whole system of workhouse and factory supervision and in the school-board system throughout the land. Intramural burial is virtually at an end. And the "Home Hospitals" and "Nursing Homes," which are established in all our large towns, are the successors of that "Sanatorium, or Home in Sickness," which he devised, and for which Charles Dickens pleaded in its early days.