Note 222 — Chapter XII · CAMBRIDGE—1871 TO 1879.
Reading edition
How readily his thoughts took a serious turn, even in the earlier undergraduate days, may be seen in a letter (not given above) of 26th March 1852:—
Æt. 20.
“A. was sent for by telegraph to his sister: he found her past recovery, and she is since dead. The family is large, and till now was entire, so that the grief is great and new.
“The attributes of man, as one of a family, seem to be more highly developed in large families. The pronoun ‘we’ acquires a peculiar significance. The family man has an idea of a living home, to which he can in imagination retreat, and which gives him a steadiness and force not his own. He is one member of a naturally constituted society; he has protected his juniors and been protected by his seniors; and now he has the consciousness that he is but one of the arrows in the quiver of the Mighty, and that it is the interest of others as well as his own that he should succeed.”