eroism in this which only those people can
appreciate who really value their time. These people will give all else
cheerfully,--money, strength, the heart's deep devotion,--but they give
very grudgingly their precious moments; they feel as though they were
being robbed in every hour thus lost. Oh, the agony of impatience! oh,
the restlessness of the fever which consumes them when they feel the
moments fleeing away, and the unconscious thief perhaps deriving little
pleasure or profit from the loss! Rebellion against fate is often a
virtue under such circumstances; and we are inclined to think it would
have been so in the case of poor Elia, even though the poor old man
should have gone to his grave with a few less games of cribbage recorded
against him.

Think of the delicious essays which might have been written in those
misspent hours, in those days of youth when Elia was at his best, before
the sorrowful touches of Time had been left upon his genius; think of
the exquisite letters his friends might have received, and which would
have enriched all the coming time; think of the inimitable drolleries
which would have sent a smile over the face of the world; think of the
little pathetic touches he would have given in sketches of
characteristic humor, all with the freshness of his dawn upon them,--and
mourn, O world of letters, for your loss! But the old man,--he for whom
the light had gone out in darkness; over whose brain the cobwebs had
been woven; who had no joy in the great things of this life; who saw no
beauty or splendor in the outer world; who had no treasure in the world
of thought; who could not be stirred again by any of the absorbing
passions of life; who knew no love, no hate, no ambition, no great
impulse to do or to dare; who could not enter into the realm of books or
art or music; who had not even a friend in all the universe of God;
think of the old man who had only this one thing,--cards,--and pause a
moment before you say that gentle Elia did not well.

Finally the old man, too, went his way, and there were only Charles and
Mary left. He had long since given up the hope of there being a third in
their life-drama, although there had been one to whom his heart was
given, and whose presence had been with him always, even in his days of
madness,--sweet Alice W., as he always called her, but of whom the world
has lost all trace save this, that she was Charles Lamb's early and only
love, and that he treasured