On page 3 of this book I proposed no mention of private domesticities or of personal religious experiences--the one being of interest merely to my family, the other a matter between God and the soul. However, the recent sudden death of one for fifty years my faithful friend and companion in marriage, urges me to record here simply her many excellent qualities, which must not be passed by without a regretful word as if I were a Stoic, or as if my dear good wife of half a century could be silently forgotten by her bereaved husband and children. I began this biography when she was in her usual health and spirits, but soon after its commencement a fit of apoplexy took her unconsciously from our happy circle,--and we are made to feel by this affliction, as also by another over leaf, how truly "in the midst of life we are in death." Her body awaits the Resurrection in Albury Churchyard, and her spirit lives with us in affectionate remembrance.
DE BEAUVOIR CHANCERY SUIT: AND BELGRAVIA.
My lamented son, Henry de Beauvoir, active and athletic, was killed in South Africa by the most unlikely accident of being jolted off the front seat in a rutty road and crushed to death under the wheel of an ox-waggon creeping at two miles an hour! This sad event occurred on May 31, 1871: and the newspapers at the time, both British and South African, fully recorded not only the accident but the heroism of the brave youth, the kind but unavailing assiduities of friends, and the municipal honours accorded to him at his funeral, when the mayor and council, the volunteers and chief inhabitants of King William's Town (every window shuttered) followed him to the grave, where Archdeacon Kitton read the solemn service; and some months after, a marble headstone was placed over his remains. His two brothers have written some touching stanzas to his memory: but they are private.
I mention all this sadness now by way of publicly acknowledging the kindness of Archdeacon Kitton and, other friends at King William's Town, not forgetting a most friendly officer of the American navy, from whom we have received many excellent letters and presents from all round the world, ever since he was among the first to break to us the death of my son, now fifteen years ago: I desire, then, cordially to thank T.G. for these kindnesses: as also Mr. Robertson, of Brechin, N.B., whose son was Henry's African comrade, with him at the time of the catastrophe, and following him to the grave.