maintained we ought to rely upon. It does not fall to me to speak of him
as a friend, as a delightful companion, as a courteous gentleman--one
whom I married and one whom, alas! I buried in the prime of his powers."
Johnstone took the position he had thus made with increasing
seriousness, and worked during the Manchester musical season harder than
ever. In the summer he went abroad, but not entirely for rest. He
greatly expanded his knowledge, and also his musical reputation and that
of his paper, by his visit to festivals at Bayreuth, at Oberammergau,
at Düsseldorf, and at Vienna. Forced to choose, we have hardly been
able, within these limits, to quote from the contributions he sent home.
The last of his foreign journeys was unlike all the others, which had
been taken alone. The words quoted above from the letter of January,
1902, were no longer to be true, though the desired companionship came
late. A solitary life in lodgings, and the absence of domestic ties to
one of his affectionate and home-loving nature (which lay behind his
gipsy habits) could not be compensated even by hosts of friends; but
brighter days were in store. In June, 1902, he became engaged to Miss
Lucy Morris, a Manchester lady who had won considerable distinction at
Cambridge; and henceforward the most human of interests gave fresh
inspiration to his life and work.
Their marriage took place two years later, on June 28th, 1904, quietly
at Morecambe. The friend of both, Canon Gorton, married them, and
another friend, Mr. Howson, undertook the musical part of the ceremony,
which was performed by the Morecambe Madrigal Society and the church
choir. There never was a wedding with better music, and for once the
hackneyed description, "the service was fully choral," might have been
used with a real meaning. The honeymoon was spent on the Riffel Alp:
afterwards the travellers attended the Bayreuth festival, returning to
Manchester at the end of August, where they went to live at Tarnhelm
(named after the magic helmet of the "Ring") in Victoria Park. A few
more months of happiness remained to Johnstone. On Thursday, December
8th, he was taken seriously ill, but though in considerable pain he
attended a concert in the evening, and wrote a notice of the
performance. The next morning his condition was worse, and on Saturday
he was operated upon for appendicitis. But relief came too late, and on
Friday, December 16th, his sufferings ended. He had just completed his
forty-third year: he was in the plenitude of his intellectual powers,
and had entered upon the happiest and most useful period of his life.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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