Belper, and has issue three sons and a daughter. His younger son, Alexander Murray Smith, who was an active partner of the firm from 1890 to 1899, married in 1893 Emily Tennyson, daughter of Dr. Bradley, dean of Westminster. His eldest daughter married in 1878 Henry Yates Thompson. His second daughter is Miss Ethel Murray Smith. His youngest daughter married in 1893 Reginald J. Smith, K.C., who joined the firm of Smith, Elder, & Co. at the end of 1894 and has been since 1899 sole active partner.
IX
In surveying the whole field of labour that Smith accomplished in his more than sixty years of adult life, one is impressed not merely by the amount of work that he achieved but by its exceptional variety. In him there were combined diverse ambitions and diverse abilities which are rarely found together in a single brain.
On the one hand he was a practical man of business, independent and masterful, richly endowed with financial instinct, most methodical, precise, and punctual in habits of mind and action. By natural temperament sanguine and cheerful, he was keen to entertain new suggestions, but the bold spirit of enterprise in him was controlled by a native prudence. In negotiation he was resolute yet cautious, and, scorning the pettiness of diplomacy, he was always alert to challenge in open fight dishonesty or meanness on the part of those with whom he had to transact affairs. Most of his mercantile ventures proved brilliant successes; very few of them went far astray. His triumphs caused in him natural elation, but his cool judgment never suffered him to delude himself long with false hopes, and when defeat was unmistakable he faced it courageously and without repining. Although he was impatient of stupidity or carelessness, he was never a harsh taskmaster. He was, indeed, scrupulously just and considerate in his dealings with those who worked capably and loyally for him, and, being a sound judge of men, seldom had grounds for regretting the bestowal of his confidence.
These valuable characteristics account for only a part of the interest attaching to Smith's career. They fail to explain why he should have been for half a century not merely one of the chief influences in the country which helped literature and art conspicuously to flourish, but the intimate friend, counsellor, and social ally of most of the men and women who made the lasting literature and art of his time. It would not be accurate to describe him as a man of great imagination, or one possessed of literary or artistic scholarship; but it is bare truth to assert that his masculine mind and temper were coloured by an intuitive sympathy with the workings of the imagination in others; by a gift for distinguishing almost at a glance a good piece of literature or art from a bad; by an innate respect for those who pursued intellectual and imaginative ideals rather than mere worldly prosperity.
No doubt his love for his labours as a publisher was partly due to the scope it gave to his speculative propensities, but it was due in a far larger degree to the opportunities it offered him of cultivating the intimacy of those
