NOTES.
To the Editor of the Philosophical Review: —
Dear Sir, — The news of George Croom Robertson's death reaches me in this distant place; and, not knowing what obituary or other notices of my friend may have appeared or be in process of appearing, I feel impelled to send you two lines to express my sense of the worth of the life which is gone. Edel sei der Mensch, hülfreich und gut, says the poet; and Croom Robertson might have been the model for the description. Whom did he not help whom he could help, — even when most needing help himself? I, for one, can never forget what I owe to his encouragement and indefatigable kindliness many years ago, in an otherwise dark London winter. For ten years he fought a losing battle against an intensely painful disease, yet never put on a plaintive tone, nor spoke tragically (however he may have felt) about the ruin of his professional career. With his convictions, his scholarship, and his energy, he would surely have influenced his generation in other ways than by editing Mind, had strength been left him. As it was, he clung to that drudgery almost to the end; and those fourteen admirably edited volumes are now, inadequately enough, almost his only monument. The perfume which his manliness leaves is, however, his truer monument. He was magnanimous; and his life forces on one the trust that "defeats" of which such good spirits as his can be elements are not in their ultimate significance as evil as to our phenomenal vision they seem to be.
William James.
Pallanza, Italy, October 1, 1892.
