Till then, farewell! Do not judge hastily of my motives for persisting in the life of retirement which I have led for so many years past. Do not think that calamity has chilled my heart, or enervated my mind. Past suffering may have changed, but it has not deteriorated me. It has fortified my spirit with an abiding strength; it has told me plainly, much that was but dimly revealed to me before; it has shown me uses to which I may put my existence, that have their sanction from other voices than the voices of fame; it has taught me to feel that bravest ambition which is vigorous enough to overleap the little life here! Is there no aspiration in the purposes for which I would now live?—Bernard! whatever we can do of good, in this world, with our affections or our faculties, rises to the eternal world above us, as a song of praise from humanity to God. Amid the thousand, thousand tones ever joining to swell the music of that song, are those which sound loudest and grandest here, the tones which travel sweetest and purest to the Imperishable Throne; which mingle in the perfectest harmony with the anthem of the angel-choir! Ask your own heart that question—and then say, may not the obscurest life—even a life like mine—be dignified by a lasting aspiration, and dedicated to a noble aim?
I have done. The calm summer evening has stolen on me while I have been writing to you; and Clara’s voice—now the happy voice of the happy old times—calls to me from our garden seat to come out and look at the sunset over the distant sea. Once more—farewell!
Endnotes
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Note by the Editor. There are some lines of writing beyond this point; but they are illegible. ↩
Colophon
Basil
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