Memorials of Dr. Richard Robert Madden.

Date:: 1886

Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: Memorials of Dr. Richard Robert Madden. Source: Wellcome Collection.

Provider: This material has been provided by The Royal College of Surgeons of England. The original may be consulted at The Royal College of Surgeons of England.

19/22 (page 17)

Yet in the Past, so live should we, Our main desire might prove, Our future life with God would be, And those dear friends we love! At the same time, nothing gave the old man more pleasure than to see, as long as possible, the few surviving friends of his earlier days around his hospitable table; except, indeed, it were the society of his family and grandchildren—and perhaps more especially of the youngest of these, a singularly bright, winning, and gifted child named Beda, whose early call from earth to heaven, on the 16th June, 1882, left a great blank in that little world of which she was the brightest sunbeam. Indeed, throughout life, he always entertained a great sentiment of affection—nay, even of reverence— for little children, by whom he, in turn, was as generally beloved, for, as he wrote in almost his last lines— There is something in the artless smiles Of children, their winning ways and wiles, Their joyous innocence and freaks, That even of the aged seeks The notice; and it almost seems They know their gracefulness redeems Their boist'rous mirth, their pranks unruly And frolicsome—perhaps unduly. These creatures have so lately come Out of their Maker's hands, they've some Faint traces of their origin Yet in them—of its source divine. No wonder aged folks should see In them so much of Purity— So much of poor humanity, Unsullied in the spotless child, By sin or sorrow undefiled. In his declining years, retaining to the end his love of learning, his cheerful, benevolent, and hospitable nature, and his sympathy with all literary and philanthropic works and workers, he occupied himself mainly with those still more serious considera-