nd often cowardly as well as
ignorant harping! Why should we not change like everything else? In
fiction, in poetry, in so much of both, French as well as English, and,
I am told, in American art and literature, the shadow of death--call it
what you will, despair, negation, indifference--is upon us. But what
fools who talk thus! Why, _amico mio_, you know as well as I that
death is life, just as our daily, our momentarily dying body is none the
less alive and ever recruiting new forces of existence. Without death,
which is our crapelike churchyardy word for change, for growth, there could
be no prolongation of that which we call life. Pshaw! it is foolish to
argue upon such a thing even. For myself, I deny death as an end of
everything. Never say of me that I am dead!"

On the evening of Thursday, the 12th of December (1889), he was in bed,
with exceeding weakness. In the centre of the lofty ceiling of the room
in which he lay, and where it had been his wont to work, there is a
painting by his son. It depicts an eagle struggling with a serpent, and
is illustrative of a superb passage in Shelley's "Revolt of Islam." What
memories, what deep thoughts, it must have suggested; how significant,
to us, the circumstance! But weak as the poet was, he yet did not see
the shadow which had begun to chill the hearts of the watchers. Shortly
before the great bell of San Marco struck ten, he turned and asked if
any news had come concerning "Asolando," published that day. His son
read him a telegram from the publishers, telling how great the demand
was and how favourable were the advance-articles in the leading papers.
The dying poet smiled and muttered, "How gratifying!" When the last toll
of St. Mark's had left a deeper stillness than before, those by the
bedside saw a yet profounder silence on the face of him whom they loved.

* * * * *

It is needless to dwell upon the grief everywhere felt and expressed for
the irreparable loss. The magnificent closing lines of Shelley's
"Alastor" must have occurred to many a mourner; for gone, indeed, was "a
surpassing Spirit." The superb pomp of the Venetian funeral, the solemn
grandeur of the interment in Westminster Abbey, do not seem worth
recording: so insignificant are all these accidents of death made by the
supreme fact itself. Yet it is fitting to know that Venice has never in
modern times afforded a more impressive sight, than those craped
processional