Brave Men and Women: Their Struggles, Failures, And TriumphsFuller, Osgood E. (Osgood Eaton)
History
Brave Men and Women: Their Struggles, Failures, And Triumphs
Fuller, Osgood E. (Osgood Eaton)
Biography
Late in the afternoon of November 8, 1693, the rude cart which was to
bear her to the guillotine received her. She was dressed in white; her
hair fell like a mantle to her knees. The chilly air and her own courage
brought back to her prison-blanched cheek the rosy hues of youth. She
spoke words of divine patience to the crowd which surged around her on
her way and reviled her. With a few low words she raised the courage of
a terror-stricken old man who took with her the same last journey, and
made him smile. As the hours wore into twilight, she passed the home of
her youth, and perhaps longed to become a little child again and enter
there and be at rest. At the foot of the scaffold she asked for pen and
paper to bequeath to posterity the thoughts which crowded upon her; they
were refused, and thus was one of the books of the sibyls lost. She
bowed to the great statue of Liberty near by, exclaiming, "_O Liberté!
comme on t' a jouée!_"[2] and gave her majestic form to the headsman to
be bound upon the plank.
The knife fell, and the world darkened upon the death of the queenliest
woman who ever lived and loved.--EX-GOVERNOR C.K. DAVIS, _of Minnesota_.
What though the triumph of thy fond forecasting
Lingers till earth is fading from thy sight?
Thy part with Him whose arms are everlasting,
Is not forsaken in a hopeless night.
Paul was begotten in the death of Stephen;
Fruitful through time shall be that precious blood:
No morning yet has ever worn to even
And missed the glory of its crimson flood.
There is a need of all the blood of martyrs,
Forevermore the eloquence of God;
And there is need of him who never barters
His patience in that desert way the Master trod.
What mean the strange, hard words, "through tribulation?"
O Man of sorrows, only Thou canst tell,
And such as in Thy life's humiliation,
Have oft been with Thee, ay, have known Thee well.
The failures of the world are God's successes,
Although their coming be akin to pain;
And frowns of Providence are but caresses,
Prophetic of the rest sought long in vain.
* * * * *
XXXVI.
CHEERFUL AND BRAVE.
THE DUKE OF WELLINGTON--SIR WALTER RALEIGH--XENOPHON--
CÆSAR--NELSON--HENRY OF NAVARRE--QUEEN ELIZABETH-- SYDNEY SMITH--ROBERT
HALL--LATIMER--TOM HOOD.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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