Death
In 1820 Flaxman's wife died. Her younger sister, Maria Denman, and his own sister, Maria Flaxman, continued to live with him, and he continued to work hard. In 1822 he delivered at the Academy a lecture in memory of his old friend and generous fellow-craftsman, Canova, then recently dead; in 1823 he received a visit from Schlegel, of which the latter wrote an account. From an illness occurring soon after this he recovered sufficiently to resume both work and exhibition, but on 3 December 1826, he caught cold in church, and died four days later, in his 72nd year. Among a few intimate associates, he left a memory singularly dear; having been in companionship, although susceptible and obstinate when his religious creed — a devout Christianity with Swedenborgian admixtures — was crossed or slighted, yet in other things genial and sweet-tempered beyond most men, full of modesty and playfulness and withal of a homely dignity, a true friend and a kind master, a pure and blameless spirit.
Read more about this topic: John Flaxman
Famous quotes containing the word death:
“My glass shall not persuade me I am old
So long as youth and thou are of one date,
But when in thee time’s furrows I behold,
Then look I death my days should expiate.”
—William Shakespeare (1564–1616)
“In the whole vast dome of living nature there reigns an open violence, a kind of prescriptive fury which arms all the creatures to their common doom: as soon as you leave the inanimate kingdom you find the decree of violent death inscribed on the very frontiers of life.”
—Joseph De Maistre (1753–1821)
“The only way out is the way through, just as you cannot escape from death except by dying. Being unable to write, you must examine in writing this being unable, which becomes for the present—henceforth?—the subject to which you are condemned.”
—Howard Nemerov (1920–1991)