Macready as I Knew Him (Paperback)

This historic book may have numerous typos and missing text. Purchasers can usually download a free scanned copy of the original book (without typos) from the publisher. Not indexed. Not illustrated. 1884 edition. Excerpt: ...and there were other demands upon our attention. Macready's eldest son Willie and his wife were then staying with him, having been at Madeira on account of ill health, and they were now about to return to Ceylon. He was deeply attached to this son; he loved his presence in the room, and would frequently look up from his book to assure himself of his presence: ' Willie Willie where's Willie?' There was a constant solicitude about him, with an effort to hide it. Macready's passionate nature was capable of self-control when there was time to exert it. This power over himself was called forth by an ill-judged piece of sympathy from a bystander, who said: ' How much you will miss Willie when he goes ' (he was to go the following day). Macready replied, with a cheerful tone and a smile: ' Oh, I have parted with him so often, that custom makes me think nothing of it.' His son looked at him gravely while he spoke, and turned very pale. The weather was intensely hot; we sat for the most part under the shade of a large tree in the garden rather than in the house, and under these circumstances Mac-ready poured out his thoughts freely. He spoke of the probability of his leaving Sherborne in the course of two years; he said he felt he must do it for the sake of his boy's education, but it would be to him a rooting up, and when he did it he should consider it as a winding-up of his affairs. The quiet and the space he enjoyed at Sherborne were grateful to him. The house to others might seem empty now; to him it was full. Yes, full of memories: it was a seat of fond remembrances: the inevitable had to be endured, and he endured it, not without gratitude for what he once enjoyed. His world was now the past: and the future, he pondered on the future, but...