OBITUARY

Otago Daily Times, Issue 21983, 19 June 1933, Page 7

OBITUARY

MRS G. S. SALE

"A MOST SWEET LADY." (Contributed.) In attempting an appreciation of Mr* Sale, widow of George Samuel Sale, for many years professor of classics at the Otago University, the writer has chosen at random a quotation, or possibly, a misquotation, from a poem by John Drinkwater. At the risk of appearing banal he has applied to a life which has just closed, an epithet which may have the . wrong connotation to the casual reader. This appreciation, however, is not intended for the casual reader, but for those in this city who were of Mrs Sale's day and generation. Professor Sale left Dunedin with his family in 1907. Exact chronology is not attempted in this hurried sketch, but that year will suffice to indicate the distance that stands between Mrs Sale's day. in Dunedin and the present times. The house at the corner of Leith and St. David, street has had at least three tenants since the departure of the late professor, foi many it still stands as a kind of symbol of those spacious days which, in the retrospect, seem so full of promise and of colour. In no home in Dunedin was there manifested a more delightful spirit of artistic and intellectual enterprise. Over this household Mrs Sale .presided with a tact, and a power of self-efface-ment that endeared her to all who crossed her threshold. Her piety was extraordinarily simple and unaffected. Hei mind may have presented itself as a. foil to that of her husband whose intellectuality had in it something of the menace of greatness. Professor Sale inspired fear as well as love, but in the case of Mrs Sale one felt that, in a restricted and specialised sense, none was common or unclean to her. Her sympathies were boundless, and her laughter was a solvent on many occasions of bitterness and unpleasantness. Her two daughters were brilliant young women —a little before their time, possibly. Mrs Covey, the elder, died in America „ before she had' accomplished all that she might have done in the realm of pictorial art. The younger daughter, who is now Mrs Orr, and resides at High Wycombe, in Buckinghamshire, was quite unusually versatile. As an executant on the violin, as an actress, as a painter and designei. she excelled. The other day the writer of this sketch came upon an _ article written by her-in connection with the Lord Ro'burts Memorial Workshops for Disabled Soldiers, which testifies to M/s Oil's abilities as an administrator. She is now the only surviving member of the family. Dr John Sale died during tbf influenza epidemic in 1918, and Mr Geoff. Sale,-* mining engineer, was killed by an explosion some years ago. It has already been written, that the house at the corner was a rendezvous for all who, found delight in intellectual pursuits. In rlie days when William Morris and the R' ssettis were something more than a poie legend one felt the presence of the prcr Raphaelite spirit, tempered by something very subtle to define. Despite her sense of fun and bonhomie there, was a certain toughness in the fluali'.y of Mrs Sale's beliefs that counteracted any tendency toward what one may call fin de sieclism. Most people with any streak of originality in their composition were "dear people" to her, but the largeness of her charity did not run to Latitm'.inarianism. ' "' . Professor Sale settled with his family at Bedford Gardens, in; London. The erstwhile " King" Sale of the West Coast, the friend of Samuel Butler, the blazer of the cultural trail in New Zealand, came back to the land of his fathers, and lived to a very great age. The writer of this sketch is, perhaps, qualified in a special way to write of the last phase of that happy life of devotion. On successive Monday afternoons, for quite a considerable time, he. was one of a party of three —the old man on his bed, the diligent student of contemporary' events and literature in general, his wife, and the listener through force of circumstances. It is well to record what good one may have encountered in the world, so here I would commit to print, so that he who is interested may read, the story of a devotion that survived all loss or possible disillusionment. It was pathetic to contemplate that giant intellect brought so low. but at the same time it was beautiful to note how the reader would endeavour every now and again, to bring that tired and stricken brain within the charmed circle of the subject under discussion. ... Mrs Sale was of Canadian stock. la olden day 3 the members of a little theatrical troupe of which her younger daughter was the star, used to chaff her about her likeness to Forbes Robertson. This was a curious" but indisputable phenomenon. I don't recall that she displayed any talents as a musician or an artist, or that she wrota verse or prose. It is possible that she did. She found fulfilment as a wife and mother, as a hostess and a friend. The disorder from which she suffered in latter, years induced a certain restlessness. No one was .more avid of life. It is natural for one to grieve at the thought that such a life is extinguished. Mrs Sale, has, pc.haps, left nothing behind her by which she may be remembered. What I would do, if I could, in this column, is to revive for a moment her day in Dunedin, for the part she played in her own epoch was a singularly gracious one. It is impossible "to think that such a life'ean evoke anything but a sense of thankfulness from the beholder. In thinking of Mrs Sale one recalls something that Wordsworth once write of his poetry. He expressed the hope that in the future it would " console -the afflicted, and add sunshine to daylight by making the happy happier, teach the young and graqious of every age to think and feel and therefore to be more actively and securely virtuous." It may be said that it profits little in these straitened time* to celebrate the dead, when the needs of the living are so pressing. Still, it is perhaps well to be reminded that the-in-heritance which we hold, and which in many instances we have betrayed, consists in something more than the outward amenities of a place. There are presences plain, in the place to those of us who have lived in a town for any time, and is it not profitable to recall one presence about which there lingers nothing but a sense of goodwill and compassion ? MR B. H. MOLLER A Press Association telegram from Nelson announces the death of Mr Bernhard Henry Moller, a prominent Mason, aged 82 years.