Occasional Papers: Selected from the Guardian, the Times, and the Saturday Review, 1846-1890, Vol. 2Church, R. W. (Richard William)
Religion
Occasional Papers: Selected from the Guardian, the Times, and the Saturday Review, 1846-1890, Vol. 2
Church, R. W. (Richard William)
Christianity; Church and state -- Great Britain; Great Britain -- Church history -- 19th century
The beautiful summer weather which came on us at the beginning of this
week gives by contrast a strange and terrible point to the calamity,
the announcement of which sent such a shock through the whole country
on Monday last. Summer days in all their brilliance seemed come at
last, after a long waiting which made them the more delightful. But as
people came down to breakfast on that morning, or as they gathered at
railway stations on their way to business, the almost incredible
tidings met them that the Bishop of Winchester was dead; that he had
been killed by a fall from his horse. In a moment, by the most trivial
of accidents, one of the foremost and most stirring men of our
generation had passed away from the scene in which his part was so
large a one. With everything calm and peaceful round him, in the midst
of the keen but tranquil enjoyment of a summer evening ride with a
friend through some of the most charming scenery in England, looking
forward to meeting another friend, and to the pleasure which a quiet
Sunday brings to hard-worked men in fine weather, and a pleasant
country house, the blow fell. The moment before, as Lord Granville
remarks, he had given expression to the fulness of his enjoyment. He
was rejoicing in the fine weather, he was keenly noticing the beauty of
the scenery at every point of the way; with his characteristic love of
trees he was noticing the different kinds and the soils which suited
them; especially he was greatly pleased with his horse. There comes a
slight dip in the smooth turf; the horse stumbles and recovers himself
unhurt; but in that short interval of time all has vanished, all things
earthly, from that quick eye and that sensitive and sympathetic mind.
It is indeed tragic. He is said to have thought with distress of a
lingering end. He was spared it. He died as a soldier dies.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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