to my nephews and sons.
my dear boys,
it has pleased god to take to himself the head of the family of which you are members. most of you are too young to enter into the full meaning of those words “family” and “membership,” but you all remember with sore hearts, and the deepest feeling of love and reverence, the gentle, strong, brave man, whom you used to call father or uncle; and who had that wonderful delight in, and attraction for, young folk, which most very gentle and brave men have. you are conscious, i know, that a great cold chasm has suddenly opened in your lives—that strength and help has gone away from you, to which you knew you might turn in any of the troubles which boys, and very young men, feel so keenly. well, i am glad that you feel that it is so: i should not have much hope of you[xii] if it were otherwise. the chasm will close up, and you will learn, i trust and pray, where to go for strength and help, in this and all other troubles.
it is very little that i can do for you. probably you can do more for me; and my need is even sorer than yours. but what i can do i will. several of you have asked me questions about your father and uncle, what we used to do, and think and talk about, when he and i were boys together. well, no one can answer these questions better than i, for we were as nearly of an age as brothers can be—i was only thirteen months younger—and we were companions from our childhood. we went together to our first school, when i was nearly eight and he nine years old; and then on to rugby together; and were never separated for more than a week until he went to oxford, where i followed a year later. for the first part of my time there, in college, we lived in the same rooms, always on the same staircase; and afterwards in the same lodgings. from that time to the day of his death we lived in the most constant intimacy and affection. looking back over all those years, i can call to mind no single unkind, or unworthy, or untruthful, act or word of his; and amongst all the good influences for which i have to be thankful, i reckon the constant presence and[xiii] example of his brave, generous, and manly life as one of the most powerful and ennobling. if i can in any measure reproduce it for you, i know that i shall be doing you a good service; and helping you, in even more difficult times than those in which we grew up, to quit yourselves as brave and true english boys and englishmen, in whatever work or station god may be pleased to call you to.
you have all been taught to look to one life as your model, and to turn to him who lived it on our earth, as to the guide, and friend, and helper, who alone can strengthen the feeble knees, and lift up the fainting heart. just in so far as you cleave to that teaching, and follow that life, will you live your own faithfully. if i were not sure that what i am going to try to do for you would help to turn you more trustfully and lovingly to that source of all truth, all strength, all light, be sure i would not have undertaken it. as it is, i know it will be my fault if it does not do this.
thomas hughes.
