Memoir and Letters of Francis W. NewmanSieveking, I. Giberne (Isabel Giberne)
Religion
Memoir and Letters of Francis W. Newman
Sieveking, I. Giberne (Isabel Giberne)
Newman, Francis William, 1805-1897
He had kind and courteous ways with women, and he surprised one by his
thoughtfulness in domestic matters. There was no subject too small or too
remote for his consideration. I remember his showing us a new scientific
way to build a fire, lighting it from the top; and it is upon a lesson of
his on rural sanitation that I have based my own management of those
matters in our country home. I have a pleasant memory of his holding a
skein of wool for me to wind one wet afternoon, and of his telling me the
while of his observations of a family of _bugs_. He was travelling in the
East, and at some place where he stayed was much distressed by vermin. At
last he discovered that a procession of bugs came out nightly from a
certain crack in the plaster, and by removing the paper he could get a
very good view of the colony with the aid of a glass. He did not disturb
them, it is needless to say, but watched them during his stay, and learnt
many curious things about their habits and customs. He formed a very high
opinion of their intelligence, I remember.
One day he came in and found my mother and some of us sitting sewing; he
asked if he might read to us, and said that his mother and sister used to
like him to read to them when they had work to do. I do not remember in
the least what he read to us, though I am sure it was appropriate and
instructive; but I remember well that he stood while he read, and that his
delivery was as clear and as careful as if he had been reading to a large
audience.
After his second marriage we saw him but little, but my mother heard from
him now and then, and he often sent her articles he had written. In the
last years of his life he wrote but seldom. I give extracts from letters
over a period of about eighteen years.
FRANCIS NEWMAN IN PRIVATE LIFE
BY MRS. BAINSMITH, SCULPTOR
My father and mother were very great personal friends of Newman's,
consequently I saw a great deal of him during my early girlhood.
My father was the late George Bucknall, of Rockdene, Weston-super-Mare,
and for many years was a great invalid. He suffered from locomotor ataxy.
Professor Newman lived just across the road from our house: we could often
see him walking about his garden, or sitting at his library window, and
very often he came across to our house to discuss his books or letters
with my father.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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