Though she
was in failing health, nobody thought her end so near; but in the very
midst of a journey to London, whilst the train was rushing on at full
speed, and no help could be procured, a sudden weakness came over her, and
in a few minutes she passed away. I was very young at the time, barely
five years old, yet everything still rises before me with all the
vividness of an imperishable memory. Again, too, I see that beautiful
intellectual brow and those lustrous eyes, and hear that musical voice,
and feel the gentle touch of that loving motherly hand. She was a woman of
attainments, fond of setting words to music, speaking perfect French, for
she had been partly educated at Evreux in Normandy, and having no little
knowledge of Greek and Latin literature, as was shown by her annotations
to a copy of Lempriere's "Classical Dictionary" which is now in my
possession.
About eighteen months after I was born, that is in the midst of the
Crimean War, my father founded, in conjunction with David Bogue, a
well-known publisher of the time, a journal called the _Illustrated
Times_, which for several years competed successfully with the
_Illustrated London News_.
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