is no universal night in this earth, and for us in the universe, there is no death. What is to us here night coming on is, on the other side of the earth, night ending, and day begun. And so what we call death the angels may regard as immortal birth; and so they do, as we may well believe. MARHAM. So they do, very often, we may be sure. In the early days of the Christian Church, what day a Christian died on was spoken of as that of his birth, his birth into a higher existence. AUBIN. Through the body and its wants, I am held down to the earth's surface, and to its customs and employments; and so I am kept out of heaven, and from off the bosom of God, and from the company of Christ, and out of the rapture of the angels. MARHAM. God help us! God make us sure of that happiness at last! God make us ready for it, for that joy unspeakable ! AUBIN. The day of our decease will be that of our coming of age; and with our last breath we shall become free of the universe. And in some region of infinity, and from among its splendors, this earth will be looked back on like a lowly home, and this life of ours be remembered like a short apprenticeship to Duty. CHAPTER IX. This is the prerogative of the noblest natures, - that their departure to higher regions exercises a no less blessed influence than did their abode on earth; that they lighten us from above, like stars by which to steer our course, often interrupted by storms. — GOETHE. MARHAM. ANY thing a dead man leaves behind him, unfinished, makes one feel so strangely the nothingness of human purposes! I remember the pain in which I once saw what would have been a very beautiful picture, only it was not finished; for the painter had died very suddenly. And once I was in the studio of a sculptor who was lately deceased; and I was much affected by the appearance of a statue, the nobleness of which was just being brought out of the marble when the artist died. And whatever purpose death cuts a man off from has for his surviving friends a look AUBIN. As though it had been shone on by light not of this world. MARHAM. But it is sad, when genius dies with its work unfinished. AUBIN. I do not think so, uncle. Besides, when would genius finish its work,—all the work it could do? For its growing grandeur would always have fresh excellence to show. MARHAM. Ay so, you are right. But Spenser's Fairy Queen, incomplete for ever AUBIN. Is a broken sentence; and what ought to be the end of it is most eloquent silence. Spenser's writing is so vivid, that recollection of what he says is like a voice speaking in one's brain. I shut my eyes, and then the poet himself is with me; and he tells me of Prince Arthur and his friends, in such a way as to make virtue itself feel more virtuous still; then he stops, when he has only half told what he began; then there is a word and half another word; and then Spenser says no more. Then I am thoughtful, and an awe comes over me. For of the poet's having died I do not think. And it is as though Spenser had been changed while talking with me. And then I think how, to the angels, this whole earth looks like a Mount of Transfiguration. And feel afresh how this is a scene in which men become spirits, and blessed spirits, if they like. MARHAM. And such we will hope Spenser is. AUBIN. There have not been very many men of whom it could be better hoped than of Spenser, I think. MARHAM. I think he was certainly a good man, Oliver, because out of the heart are the issues of life; and Spenser's heart was full of the beauty of a moral life. AUBIN. Now and then, he either has or makes occasion to say things, which, from most other men, would be lustful incentives; but from him they do not sound so. MARHAM. Showing how, to the pure, all things are pure. AUBIN. So what you said of another we say of you, O Edmund Spenser ! your virtue is the brightness of your honor on earth, and elsewhere it is the reason For which enrollèd is your glorious name In heavenly registers above the sun, Where you, a saint, with saints your seat have won. He lies buried MARHAM. AUBIN. Not he, but his body does. MARHAM. In Westminster Abbey, I think. AUBIN. Yes, uncle; and nigh the grave of the poet Chaucer. Yes, and Geoffrey Chaucer was he That left, half told, The story of Cambuscan bold. He is another of those who have gone away with the word in their mouths, and who have left us to feel as though that word were to be spoken yet, and we to hear it. MARHAM. I will read you the last lines that Chaucer wrote. They are the end of what is called the Good Counsel of Chaucer, and are said to have been made by him upon his death-bed, while lying in his great anguish. That thee is sent, receive in buxomness. AUBIN. Or, as I have seen the last line modernized, Truth to thine own heart Thy soul shall save. A choice couplet, is not it, uncle ? MARHAM. Perhaps it is. But I should feel the worth of it better, if you were to recite the poem itself that you quote from. Now will you? |