“Of all the happy things that live in ocean, earth, or air, Not one with kindred sympathy my lonely lot shall share. My friend shall vainly scan the glance that speaks no language now; My dog shall lick the languid hand that falters on his brow: But none shall venture forth with me, to meet the dread unknown, And I between two living worlds—must die alone!” _Je mourrai seul._ Pascal’s words are continually cited, though only to be forgotten. Mrs. Browning feelingly and earnestly expands into a sonnet what she entitles “A Thought for a Lonely Death-bed. Inscribed to my friend E. C.” “If God compel thee to this destiny, To die alone,—with none beside thy bed To ruffle round with sobs thy last word said, And mark with tears the pulses ebb from thee,— Then pray alone—‘O Christ, come tenderly! By Thy forsaken Sonship in the red Drear wine-press,—by the wilderness outspread,— And the lone garden where Thine agony Fell bloody from Thy brow,—by all of those Permitted desolations, comfort mine! No earthly friend being near me, interpose No deathly angel ’twixt my face and Thine, But stoop Thyself to gather my life’s rose, And smile away my mortal to Divine.’” One can hardly quit this subject without recalling the awful significance of a cry that once expressed, if one may say it, inexpressible anguish,—anguish indescribable, incommunicable,—“My God, my God, why hast Thou forsaken Me!” Penultimate words, these were; and appalling in their suggestiveness of uttermost desolation. But not the last words of all. He was not alone, consciously not alone, at the very last. Later than these, and triumphant over these—however subdued and serene the triumph—came those other words, Divinely calm, as became the Speaker,—“Father, into Thy hands I commend my spirit.” And it was when He had _this_ said, that He gave up the ghost. FOOTNOTES [1] “Wave your hand; the motion which has apparently ceased is taken up by the air, from the air by the walls of the room, etc., and so by direct and re-acting waves, continually comminuted, but never destroyed.”—_Grove’s Correlation of Physical Forces._ [2] The Candidate, Lord Sandwich. [3] See on the scope of the words ἐπιθυμῶν χορτασθῆναι (St. Luke xvi. 21), _Analecta Theologica_ (Rev. W. Trollope’s) _in loc._ [4] Earlier in the tale there is a touch to remind us of Lear on the heath: “‘Know you his conduct?’ ‘Yes, indeed, I know, And how he wanders in the wind and snow; Safe in our rooms the threatening storm we hear, But he feels strongly what we faintly fear.’”