t-rooted, [and] bend shelteringly
over the water; there every night may [one] see a dire portent, fire on
the flood. No one of the sons of men is so experienced as to know those
lake-depths. Though the heath-ranging hart, with strong horns, pressed
hard by the hounds, seek that wooded holt, hunted from far, he will
sooner give up his life, his last breath on the bank, before he will
[hide] his head therein. It is not a holy place. Thence the turbid wave
riseth up dark-hued to the clouds, when the wind stirreth up foul
weather, until the air grows gloomy, the heavens weep."

The same unchanging genius manifests itself in the national epic, in the
shorter songs, and even in the prose chronicles of the Anglo-Saxons. To
their excessive enthusiasms succeed periods of complete depression;
their orgies are followed by despair; they sacrifice their life in
battle without a frown, and yet, when the hour for thought has come,
they are harassed by the idea of death. Their national religion foresaw
the end of the world and of all things, and of the gods even. Listen,
once more, to the well-known words of one of them:

"Human life reminds me of the gatherings thou holdest with thy
companions in winter, around the fire lighted in the middle of the hall.
It is warm in the hall, and outside howls the tempest with its
whirlwinds of rain and snow. Let a sparrow enter by one door, and,
crossing the hall, escape by another. While he passes through, he is
sheltered from the wintry storm; but this moment of peace is brief.
Emerging from the cold, in an instant he disappears from sight, and
returns to the cold again. Such is the life of man; we behold it for a
short time, but what has preceded and what is to follow, we know
not...."[65]

Would not Hamlet have spoken thus, or Claudio?

Ay, to die and go we know not where;
To lie in cold obstruction....

Thus spoke, nine centuries before them, an Anglo-Saxon chief who had
arisen in the council of King Eduini and advised him, according to Bede,
to adopt the religion of the monks from Rome, because it solved the
fearful problem. In spite of years and change, this anxiety did not die
out; it was felt by the Puritans, and Bunyan, and Dr. Johnson, and the
poet Cowper.

Another view of the problem was held by races imbued with classical
ideas, the French and others; classical equanimity influenced them. Let
us not poison our lives by the idea of death, they used to think, at
least bef