Alone, with your dog living on bones, and you on hope—kindling each morning, dying slowly each night—this could be borne. Philosophy would bring home its stores to the lone man. Money is not in his hand, but knowledge is in his brain! and from that brain he draws out faster, as he draws slower from his pocket. He remembers; and on remembrance he can live for days and weeks. The garret, if a garret covers him, is rich in fancies. The rain, if it pelts, pelts only him used to rain-peltings. And his dog crouches not in dread, but in companionship. His crust he divides with him, and laughs. He crowns himself with glorious memories of Cervantes, though he begs; if he nights it under the stars, he dreams heaven-sent dreams of the prisoned and homeless Galileo. He hums old sonnets, and snatches of poor Jonson’s plays. He chants Dryden’s odes, and dwells on Otway’s rhyme. He reasons with Bolingbroke or Diogenes as the humor takes him, and laughs at the world, for the world, thank Heaven, has left him alone! Keep your money, old misers, and your palaces, old princes—the world is mine! I care not, fortune, what you me deny. You cannot rob me of free nature’s grace, You cannot shut the windows of the sky; You cannot bar my constant feet to trace The woods and lawns, by living streams, at eve, Let health, my nerves and finer fibers brace, And I, their toys, to the great children, leave. Of fancy, reason, virtue, nought can we bereave! But—if not alone? If _she_ is clinging to you for support, for consolation, for home, for life—she, reared in luxury, perhaps, is faint for bread? Then the iron enters the soul; then the nights darken under any skylight. Then the days grow long, even in the solstice of winter. She may not complain; what then? Will your heart grow strong, if the strength of her love can dam up the fountains of tears, and the tied tongue not tell of bereavement? Will it solace you to find her parting the poor treasure of food you have stolen for her, with begging, foodless children? But this ill, strong hands and Heaven’s help will put down. Wealth again; flowers again; patrimonial acres again; brightness again. But your little Bessie, your favorite child, is pining. Would to God! you say in agony, that wealth could bring fullness again into that blanched cheek, or round those little thin lips once more; but it can not. Thinner and thinner they grow; plaintive and more plaintive her sweet voice. “Dear Bessie”—and your tones tremble; you feel that she is on the edge of the grave? Can you pluck her back? Can endearments stay her? Business is heavy, away from the loved child; home, you go, to fondle while yet time is left—but _this_ time you are too late. She is gone. She can not hear you; she can not thank you for the violets you put within her stiff white hand. And then—the grassy mound—the cold shadow of head-stone!