We regret to record the death in the Herzegovina of
Mr. William Clarke, a journalist of whose skill as a meta- physician and as a literary critic of a high order our readers have had many proofs during the last few years. Though hampered through all his later life by chronic and painful ill-health, he had acquired while still a young man an extra- ordinary range of information. He had, we verily believe, read and assimilated every intellectual book in three languages, and might, had he been spared, have given the world some work not of ephemeral value. His dislike of modern society drew him at first towards Socialism, from which, however, as his religious experience deepened, he finally slipped away, ending in an attitude of mind which was deeply and sincerely religious and essentially Christian. A friend described it as a kind of Radical Quakerism. Of all the men we ever met who knew history, he had the most profound horror of militarism. It was, however, to the problems of mind that his life was devoted ; and as regards them, he bad a keenness of insight born of a wealth of knowledge. His death will be felt as a deep personal loss by a large circle of friends, who loved and respected him as a man of high character and one possessed of an intellectual sincerity that was never clouded.
Previous page
