Richard Cobden (Paperback)

This historic book may have numerous typos and missing text. Purchasers can download a free scanned copy of the original book (without typos) from the publisher. Not indexed. Not illustrated.1895 Excerpt: ... LAST DAYS. ArART from his actual engagement in public movements and public affairs, Cobden's life does not afford many instances or episodes for the biographer.' The most terrible grief of his life was the loss of his only son, in 1856, a very promising youth, fifteen years of age, who died of scarlet fever at his school in Heidelberg. By both parents the child was idolised, and the grief of the mother and the father is one of the most painful stories of the kind in modern biography. All their personal friends agree that the father was never again the same man after this blow, and the shock to the mother was such that, though she lived afterwards for more than twenty years, it was impossible for those with whom she lived ever to forget the effect upon her of that news from Heidelberg. His natural vigour of mind and intense interest in public affairs helped Cobden after awhile in some degree to recover tone and spirit; but he was a man of keen and tender social and domestic feeling, never so happy as in.his home with his children. He had not only a great love for children, but was full of a peculiar thoughtfulness and consideration for them. Of this his friend, Mr.Thomas Bayley Potter, relates a touching incident. Only a few hours before setting out for Paris from Newhaven to enter upon the hard work of the Commercial Treaty, Cobden was with Mr. Potter and members of his family at Devil's Dyke, near Brighton. One of Mr. Potter's sons, a child' about eight years of age, was much pleased with a new indiarubber ball, and Cobden joined the child in throwing and catching the ball on the grassy slope. At length Cobden threw the ball a little too far, and it ran down the steep declivity out of reach of recovery. The flash of disappointment on the child's face so af...