3-071-130 - The Print Collector/Heritage Images

In Memory, from the picture by A. Stocks, in the Royal Academy Exhibition, 1883. Engraving of a painting. '"All are not taken! There are left behind Living belovèds, tender looks to bring, And make the daylight still a blessed thing". These lines, by Mrs. Browning, are appropriately appended to the title of this picture...The artist, Mr. Arthur Stocks, is making himself a reputation as a painter of incidents of humble life, generally of pathetic character. The touching character of the present subject finds its way straight to the heart. The poor bereaved labouring man is planting a geranium, from his own cottage garden, on the grave of her whose death is so fresh and green in his memory; and, doing so, he turns with yearning affection to print a kiss on the little human flower the dear lost wife has left him to tend - the "living beloved" the great strong hand supports so tenderly on his knee. The grave is but a lowly hillock of turf, but that bright geranium is at least as true a memento as the neighbouring long-neglected tombstone with sculptured urn, or the more ambitious but dilapidated architectural structure, overgrown with weeds. And the love of the strong man is not buried, but lives on, revived in the little image of the lost one'. From "Illustrated London News", 1883.