g they had this sort
of death also in their eye. For, surely, at whatever age it overtake the
man, this is to die young.
*****
And so they were at last in 'their resting graves.' So long as men do
their duty, even if it be greatly in a misapprehension, they will be
leading pattern lives; and whether or not they come to lie beside a
martyrs' monument, we may be sure they will find a safe haven somewhere
in the providence of God. It is not well to think of death, unless
we temper the thought with that of heroes who despised it. Upon what
ground, is of small account; if it be only the bishop who was burned for
his faith in the antipodes, his memory lightens the heart and makes
us walk undisturbed among graves. And so the martyrs' monument is a
wholesome spot in the field of the dead; and as we look upon it, a
brave influence comes to us from the land of those who have won their
discharge, and in another phrase of Patrick Walker's, got 'cleanly off
the stage.'
*****
It is not only our enemies, those desperate characters-it is we
ourselves who know not what we do;-thence springs the glimmering hope
that perhaps we do better than we think: that to scramble through this
random business with hands reasonably clean, to have played the part of
a man or woman with some reasonable fulness, to have often resisted the
diabolic, and at the end to be still resisting it, is for the poor human
soldier to have done right well.
*****
We are not content to pass away entirely from the scenes of our delight;
we would leave, if but in gratitude, a pillar and a legend.
*****
There are many spiritual eyes that seem to spy upon our actions-eyes
of the dead and the absent, whom we imagine to behold us in our most
private hours, and whom we fear and scruple to offend: our witnesses and
judges.
*****
How unsubstantial is this projection of a man s existence, which can lie
in abeyance for centuries and then be brushed up again and set forth for
the consideration of posterity by a few dips in an antiquary's ink-pot!
This precarious tenure of fame goes a long way to justify those (and
they are not few) who prefer cakes and cream in the immediate present.
*****
But I beard the voice of a woman singing some sad, old endless ballad
not far off. It seemed to be about love and a BEL AMOUREUX, her handsome
sweetheart; and I wished I could have taken up the strain and answered
her, as I went on upon my invisible woodland way, wea
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