A Legacy; Being the Life and Remains of John Martin, School Master and Poet (Paperback)

Book may have numerous typos, missing text, images, or index. Purchasers can download a free scanned copy of the original book (without typos) from the publisher. 1878. Excerpt: ... doing what I now do, in order that he should not wholly pass away and be forgotten. To begin his history. First, let me relate how it came to my knowledge, and my own small part therein, with a deep regret that it was so small, that various inevitable circumstances, added to his own exceeding reticence and independence, caused me to know almost nothing of the real character of the man until he died. I only saw him once--no, twice; but that was not him, alas and his letters to me, which I put in my usual safe and sacred receptacle for most letters, the fire, did not number half a dozen in all. Consequently he was, except in the merest external and literary sense, almost a stranger to me from first to last--a fact which, now that it has become irremediable, adds to the melancholy earnestness with which I tell my tale. Most of us try our best to do " what our hand findeth to do;" but are we careful to do all that we might have done? Do we not sometimes live to consider, sorrowfully, whether, if we had only thought of it at the time, we might not have done just a very little more? I do. Eight or nine years ago--I cannot recall the exact date, for it made little impression on me at the time, such requests being so common to us workers in literature--but about nine years ago, a friend and neighbor (he allows me to name him-- the Eev. Robert Linklater) asked me if I would see and give a few minutes' advice to a young man who was then staying at his house, having been nursed there through a lingering convalescence. He was n "poor fellow" from the East of London, who had risen out of the very lowest ranks, and contrived to educate himself, by hook or by crook, so as to become a teacher at one of the schools there, in which Mr. Linklater was a most devoted and faithful worker. The young man ...