The roots which
hold human life to earth are absorbed before it is lifted from its
place. Some of the dying are weary and want rest, the idea of which is
almost inseparable in the universal mind from death. Some are in pain,
and want to be rid of it, even though the anodyne be dropped, as in the
legend, from the sword of the Death-Angel. Some are stupid, mercifully
narcotized that they may go to sleep without long tossing about. And
some are strong in faith and hope, so that, as they draw near the next
world, they would fain hurry toward it, as the caravan moves faster
over the sands when the foremost travellers send word along the file
that water is in sight Though each little party that follows in a
foot-track of its own will have it that the water to which others think
they are hastening is a mirage, not the less has it been true in all
ages and for human beings of every creed which recognized a future,
that those who have fallen worn out by their march through the Desert
have dreamed at least of a River of Life, and thought they heard its
murmurs as they lay dying.
The change from the clinging to the present to the welcoming of the
future comes very soon, for the most part, after all hope of life is
extinguished, provided this be left in good degree to Nature, and not
insolently and cruelly forced upon those who are attacked by illness,
on the strength of that odious fore-knowledge often imparted by
science, before the white fruit whose core is ashes, and which we call
_death_, has set beneath the pallid and drooping flower of sickness.
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