XXIII.

1874-1877.  AEt. 60-63.

Death of Mrs. Motley.—­Last visit to America.—­Illness and death.-Lady HARCOURT’S communication.

On the last day of 1874, the beloved wife, whose health had for some years been failing, was taken from him by death.  She had been the pride of his happier years, the stay and solace of those which had so tried his sensitive spirit.  The blow found him already weakened by mental suffering and bodily infirmity, and he never recovered from it.  Mr. Motley’s last visit to America was in the summer and autumn of 1875.  During several weeks which he passed at Nahant, a seaside resort near Boston, I saw him almost daily.  He walked feebly and with some little difficulty, and complained of a feeling of great weight in the right arm, which made writing laborious.  His handwriting had not betrayed any very obvious change, so far as I had noticed in his letters.  His features and speech were without any paralytic character.  His mind was clear except when, as on one or two occasions, he complained of some confused feeling, and walked a few minutes in the open air to compose himself.  His thoughts were always tending to revert to the almost worshipped companion from whom death had parted him a few months before.  Yet he could often be led away to other topics, and in talking of them could be betrayed into momentary cheerfulness of manner.  His long-enduring and all-pervading grief was not more a tribute to the virtues and graces of her whom he mourned than an evidence of the deeply affectionate nature which in other relations endeared him to so many whose friendship was a title to love and honor.

I have now the privilege of once more recurring to the narrative of Mr. Motley’s daughter, Lady Harcourt.

“The harassing work and mental distress of this time [after the recall from England], acting on an acutely nervous organization, began the process of undermining his constitution, of which we were so soon to see the results.  It was not the least courageous act of his life, that, smarting under a fresh wound, tired and unhappy, he set his face immediately towards the accomplishment of fresh literary labor.  After my sister’s marriage in January he went to the Hague to begin his researches in the archives for John of Barneveld.  The Queen of the Netherlands had made ready a house for us, and personally superintended every preparation for his reception.  We remained there until the spring, and then removed to a house more immediately in the town, a charming old-fashioned mansion, once lived in by John de Witt, where he had a large library and every domestic comfort during the year of his sojourn.  The incessant literary labor in an enervating climate with enfeebled health may have prepared the way for the first break in his constitution, which was to show