Page:Poetical works of Mathilde Blind.djvu/68

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MEMOIR

bath-chair and receiving afternoon visitors until within five days of her death. She even expressed a hope that she might yet once again see the Riviera. She passed the day of her departure, November 26, 1896, quietly and peacefully, gradually and gently sinking into the sleep of death. On December 2nd a funeral discourse, afterwards published, was pronounced over her remains in Stamford Street Unitarian Chapel by her old and true friend, Mr. Moncure Conway, to a large audience of men and women, many of much distinction, who had esteemed and loved and admired her in life. The remains w^ere then conveyed to "Woking for cremation, and were subsequently interred in Finchley Cemetery, near the grave of Madox Brown and his wife. Her resting-place is indicated by a beautiful monument, the work of M. Lanteri, and a memorial of the attachment of Dr. and Mrs. Ludwig Mond, who have raised yet another monument by the publication of her poetical writings.

Perhaps the re-publication of Mathilde Blind's poems is less fitly described as a monument to the authoress than as a reviviscence of the authoress herself. They are, indeed, far from expressing the entire force and depth of her nature; but they are its faithful reflection. Nothing was more characteristic of her than her absolute truthfulness; she might take refuge in reserve, but she could not speak without manifesting her real mind. In her poetical works she has bequeathed an image of the strong and weak points of her temperament and intellect. The former—energy, enthusiasm, constant aspiration towards the highest things—require no further comment; the latter may be briefly summed up as an inattention to external polish and finish, which in life sometimes wore the aspect of indiffer-