When Raymond was dying on the battle-field he gave the doctor his flask to give to his father; it was placed by the side of his bed and never moved till we left Whitehall.

I had not realised before how powerless a step-wife is when her husband is mourning the death of his child; and not for the first time I profoundly wished that Raymond had been my son.

Among the many letters we received, this one from Sir Edward Grey, the present Lord Grey of Fallodon, gave my husband the most comfort: 

33 Eccleston square, S.W.  Sept. 18, 1916.

My dear Asquith,

A generation has passed since Raymond’s mother died and the years that have gone make me feel for and with you even more than I would then.  Raymond has had a brilliant and unblemished life; he chose with courage the heroic part in this war and he has died as a hero.

If this life be all, it matters not whether its years be few or many, but if it be not all, then Raymond’s life is part of something that is not made less by his death, but is made greater and ennobled by the quality and merit of his life and death.

I would fain believe that those who die do not suffer in the separation from those they love here; that time is not to them what it is to us, and that to them the years of separation be they few or many will be but as yesterday.

If so then only for us, who are left here, is the pain of suffering and the weariness of waiting and enduring; the one beloved is spared that.  There is some comfort in thinking that it is we, not the loved one, that have the harder part.

I grieve especially for Raymond’s wife, whose suffering I fear must be what is unbearable.  I hope the knowledge of how the feelings of your friends and the whole nation, and not of this nation only, for you is quickened and goes out to you will help you to continue the public work, which is now more than ever necessary, and will give you strength.  Your courage I know never fails.

Yours affectionately,

Edward grey.

Raymond Asquith was the bravest of the brave, nor did he ever complain of anything that fell to his lot while he was soldiering.

It might have been written of him: 

    He died
    As one that had been studied in his death
    To throw away the dearest thing he own’d. 
    As ’twere a careless trifle. 
    —­MACBETH, Act I., sc. iv.

Our second son, Herbert, began his career as a lawyer.  He had a sweet and gentle nature and much originality.  He was a poet and wrote the following some years before the Great War of 1914, through which he served from the first day to the last: 

THE VOLUNTEER

[Footnote:  Reprinted from The Volunteer and other Poems, by kind permission of Messrs. Sidgwick & Jackson.]