Livingstone and Newstead #265745

This year is the centenary of Dr Livingstone's birth, but amidst all its celebrations the presence will be missed of the one child who was nearest to him in spirit. For only a few months ago, in the spring of 1912, his eldest daughter, Agnes Livingstone Bruce, was taken from us. Therefore, at this distance of time, nearly forty years after her father's death, when already all memories of survivors are either waxing dim or crystallising into history not always authentic, it seems to me right to put on record, however imperfectly, my recollections of Livingstone and his daughter Agnes as I knew them. True it is that when I met Dr Livingstone I was only a very young child myself, and, therefore, much that one would wish to know must be lacking. Perhaps, however, for the very reason that I was only a child, my recollections, such as they are, may throw fresh light on Livingstone's character. They show him, not as the great explorer and missionary, but as in our daily home life at Newstead he appeared to the eyes of an observant child unaware of his fame. In those far off days Dr Livingstone was to me not a celebrity, but simply one of my dear father's most intimate friends, and as such to be accepted as part of the natural order of things.