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OF IOWA

Francis Turner Palgrave RY

HIS JOURNALS

AND MEMORIES OF HIS LIFE

BY

Gwenllian F. Palgrave

What should a man desire to leave?
A flawless work; a noble life:
Some music harmonized from strife,
Some finish'd thing, ere the slack hands at eve
Drop, should be his to leave.

Or in life's homeliest, meanest spot,
To strike the circle of his years

A perfect curve through joys and tears,
Leaving a pure name to be known, or not,—
This is a true man's lot.

Ah, 'tis but little that the best,

Frail children of a fleeting hour,
Can leave of perfect fruit or flower!
Ah, let all else be graciously supprest

When man lies down to rest!

LONGMANS,

GREEN, AND CO.

39 PATERNOSTER ROW, LONDON

NEW YORK AND BOMBAY

1899

All rights reserved

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PREFACE

THIS little sketch of my father's life has been attempted at the wish, not only of many personal friends, but also of some who have only known him through the 'Golden Treasury' or his hymns. It has been greatly aided by his own journals, which are quoted at some length, for in them he speaks for himself, expressing many thoughts and opinions which could not otherwise have been so plainly given. Moreover, they especially help to fill the gap resulting from the comparative scarcity of his own letters. This scarcity is partly due, unhappily, to the fact that very many of my father's contemporaries have died during the last ten years, the letters in these cases having been usually destroyed. The sole correspondence which had been preserved in any sense of completeness was between him and Mr. Gladstone-generally on purely literary subjects-but the letters from Mr. Gladstone have had to be inevitably omitted, in deference to the wishes of his trustees. Then, again, my father, when looking over a large portion of the late Lord Tennyson's correspondence, burned the majority of

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