ay life, with a peculiar yearning
to share it with them, envying the calm, earthy cheerfulness of all
their days to be, still under the sun, though so indifferent, of
course, to him!--as if these rude people had been suddenly lifted into
some height of earthly good-fortune, which must needs isolate them from
himself.

Tristem neminen fecit+--he repeated to himself; his old prayer shaping
itself now almost as his epitaph. Yes! so much the very hardest judge
[218] must concede to him. And the sense of satisfaction which that
thought left with him disposed him to a conscious effort of
recollection, while he lay there, unable now even to raise his head, as
he discovered on attempting to reach a pitcher of water which stood
near. Revelation, vision, the discovery of a vision, the seeing of a
perfect humanity, in a perfect world--through all his alternations of
mind, by some dominant instinct, determined by the original necessities
of his own nature and character, he had always set that above the
having, or even the doing, of anything. For, such vision, if received
with due attitude on his part, was, in reality, the being something,
and as such was surely a pleasant offering or sacrifice to whatever
gods there might be, observant of him. And how goodly had the vision
been!--one long unfolding of beauty and energy in things, upon the
closing of which he might gratefully utter his "Vixi!"+ Even then,
just ere his eyes were to be shut for ever, the things they had seen
seemed a veritable possession in hand; the persons, the places, above
all, the touching image of Jesus, apprehended dimly through the
expressive faces, the crying of the children, in that mysterious drama,
with a sudden sense of peace and satisfaction now, which he could not
explain to himself. Surely, he had prospered in life! And again, as of
old, the sense of gratitude seemed to bring with it the sense also of a
living person at his side.

[219] For still, in a shadowy world, his deeper wisdom had ever been,
with a sense of economy, with a jealous estimate of gain and loss, to
use life, not as the means to some problematic end, but, as far as
might be, from dying hour to dying hour, an end in itself--a kind of
music, all-sufficing to the duly trained ear, even as it died out on
the air. Yet now, aware still in that suffering body of such vivid
powers of mind and sense, as he anticipated from time to time how his
sickness, practically without aid as he