That life which began so small has now grown, with
a myriad filaments, into the lives of others. It is not
indispensable; another will take the place and shoulder the
discharged responsibilities; but the better the man and the
nobler his purposes, the more will he be tempted to regret
the extinction of his powers and the deletion of his
personality. To have lived a generation is not only to
have grown at home in that perplexing medium, but to have
assumed innumerable duties. To die at such an age has,
for all but the entirely base, something of the air
of a betrayal.
*
Even if death catch people, like an open pitfall, and in
mid-career, laying out vast projects, and planning
monstrous foundations, flushed with hope, and their mouths
full of boastful language, they should be at once tripped
up and silenced: is there not something brave and spirited
in such a termination? and does not life go down with a
better grace, foaming in full body over a precipice, than
miserably straggling to an end in sandy deltas? When the
Greeks made their fine saying that those whom the gods love
die young, I cannot help believing 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.
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