LETTER TO HIS YOUNGER SON. 353 ture, his father writes hoping that he might see a French story he had just published: Hon. Sir Charles Murray to his Son Cecil.1 "MACKELLAR'S HOTEL, LONDON, July 1892. "I wish to suggest to you the motif for another that has occurred to me, which I think you might extend into something at all events new. I would call it 'La Complainte d'une Oie.' Of course I only pretend to give you the heads and the suggestions: the ancient ancestry of the goose-visiting Egypt from the northern climes of Scythia-her superiority over man—the 'animal impulse' of Pythagoras -then the saviour of the Roman Capitol from the Gauls, with the cruel rites which followed. Then in later times the quills from their wing which transmitted for certain the words and thoughts of poetry, historians, &c., &c.-then the petites oies of Louis XIV.'s time as recognised love-tokens; while in compliment to their wing all writers have been designated as hommes de plume, whilst in these later days their higher vocation has been degraded into ... Gillott's steel pens! If you cannot make out a 'Complainte de l'oie,' your imagination must be asleep or paralysed by Schwalbach water." 1 Mr Cecil Murray died at sea, under most painful circumstances, on June 3rd, 1896, the first anniversary of his father's death. Ꮓ 354 CHAPTER XIV. 1892-1895. LAST YEARS. THE sands were running low. To many who wintered at Cannes a few years ago must the remembrance be fresh of the handsome white-haired old gentleman, with his kindly greeting ever ready to welcome an acquaintance, and his old-fashioned courtliness of manner. Ambition so much of that as he had ever cherished was long since dead; memory was still quick, stretching back into a world which few men living could have recognised. Still Sir Charles read much and studied, wrote much to his friends at a distance -a fast dwindling band-and enjoyed the presence of those who chanced to be at hand. But bodily infirmity was creeping on. Of his sons, the elder had long ago made a career |