makes
it feel as if it had been cheated out of half its personality, and the
statue looks uneasy because another stands on a loftier pedestal.
But "Ignotus" and "Miserrimus" are of the great majority in that vast
assembly, that House of Commons whose members are all peers, where to be
forgotten is the standing rule. The dignity of a silent memory is not
to be undervalued. Fame is after all a kind of rude handling, and a
name that is often on vulgar lips seems to borrow something not to be
desired, as the paper money that passes from hand to hand gains somewhat
which is a loss thereby. O sweet, tranquil refuge of oblivion, so far
as earth is concerned, for us poor blundering, stammering, misbehaving
creatures who cannot turn over a leaf of our life's diary without
feeling thankful that its failure can no longer stare us in the face!
Not unwelcome shall be the baptism of dust which hides forever the name
that was given in the baptism of water! We shall have good company whose
names are left unspoken by posterity. "Who knows whether the best of men
be known, or whether there be not more remarkable persons forgot than
any that stand remembered in the known account of time? The greater part
must be content to be as though they had not been; to be found in the
register of God, not in the record of man. Twenty-seven names make up
the first story before the flood, and the recorded names ever since
contain not one living century."

I have my moods about such things as the Young Astronomer has, as we all
have. There are times when the thought of becoming utterly nothing to
the world we knew so well and loved so much is painful and oppressive;
we gasp as if in a vacuum, missing the atmosphere of life we have so
long been in the habit of breathing. Not the less are there moments
when the aching need of repose comes over us and the requiescat in pace,
heathen benediction as it is, sounds more sweetly in our ears than all
the promises that Fame can hold out to us.

I wonder whether it ever occurred to you to reflect upon another horror
there must be in leaving a name behind you. Think what a horrid piece of
work the biographers make of a man's private history! Just imagine the
subject of one of those extraordinary fictions called biographies coming
back and reading the life of himself, written very probably by somebody
or other who thought he could turn a penny by doing it, and having the
pleasure of seeing

"His little bark