Behind the affectionate gentleness of his nature, that was susceptible to every influence, there lay a faith that nothing could shake or weaken. In its service he was prepared to make all sacrifice of time and strength and labour. His friends claimed much of him, and he yielded it. Generous both in act and thought, there was probably no man of such concentrated purpose who ever placed himself so freely at the service of those he loved. But there was no friend of them all, and there were many who could claim perhaps a closer alliance than I, who could cause him to swerve for a moment from the labour that was his life. One of the last letters I received from him must have concerned another of these little feasts which he had projected and which for some reason I was compelled to postpone. I cannot now recall what I then wrote to him, but I suppose my letter must have contained some reference to our long and close friendship, for I received from him in reply an affectionate little note that it is a pleasure to me to preserve. “Dear Carr,” he writes, “I too feel just the same. I want years and years of us together, and much work and a little play. We will put it off for a week, then, and I will try and rearrange, and perhaps Tadema will join.--Yours affectionately, E. B. J.” Those “years and years” that would have been so dear to us were unhappily denied. He was often ailing in the later days of his life, and it was easy to perceive that he was sometimes apprehensive as to the condition of his health. And yet he never allowed his own anxieties to burden others. On one occasion I remember, and it must have been about this time, he told me he had been to see his doctor, who had questioned him closely as to his habits as a smoker. “How many cigars do you smoke in a day?” he had inquired of his patient, to which Burne-Jones had carelessly replied: “Oh, I think about six.” “Well,” replied his adviser, “for the present you had better limit yourself to three.” And in detailing the incident to me afterwards Burne-Jones added with a chuckle: “You know, my dear Carr, I never did smoke more than three.”