The Memories of Fifty Years: Containing Brief Biographical Notices of Distinguished Americans, and Anecdotes of Remarkable Men; Interspersed with Scenes and Incidents Occurring during a Long Life of Observation Chiefly Spent in the SouthwestSparks, W. H. (William Henry)
History
The Memories of Fifty Years: Containing Brief Biographical Notices of Distinguished Americans, and Anecdotes of Remarkable Men; Interspersed with Scenes and Incidents Occurring during a Long Life of Observation Chiefly Spent in the Southwest
Sparks, W. H. (William Henry)
Georgia -- History -- 1775-1865; Southwest, Old -- History; United States -- Biography
Nature's harmony, nature's loveliness, nature's expansive greatness and
grandeur teaches of God, and godliness. The inanimate and unthinking
are consistently harmonious and beautiful; man only mars the harmony,
and makes a hell for man in time. Then, is time his all? or, shall this
accursed rabidness be purged away with death, and he become a tone in
accord with inanimate things? or, shall this but purify as fire the
yielding metal, the inner man, which hope or instinct whispers lives,
and animates its tenement of time, to view, to know, and to enjoy
creation through eternity? Wild thoughts are kindling in my brain, wild
feelings stir my heart.
This is a beautiful Sabbath morning, the blazing sun wades through the
blue ether, and space seems redolent of purity and beauty. The breeze
is as bland as the breath of a babe, coming through my casement with
the light, and bathing my parched cheek; and the sere summer is warming
away the gentle, genial spring. This is her last day; and to how many
countless thousands is it the last day of life? Oh! could I die as
gently, as beautifully as dies this budding season of the year, and
could I know my budding hopes, like these buds of spring, would, in
their summer, grow to fruit as these are growing, how welcome eternity!
But I, as well, have my law, and must wait its fulfilment. It is the
Sabbath wisely ordained to rest, and in its quiet and beauty obviating
care and sorrow. Would it were to the restless mind as to the weary
limbs, and as to these, to this give ease and repose!
I have been dreaming, and my boyhood days revive with busy memories. My
gentle mother, ever tender and kind, seems busy before me; the old
home, the old servants, as they were; the old school-house in the woods
by the branch, and many a merry face laughing and beaming around; and
my own old classmate, my solitary classmate, so loved, ah! so loved
even unto this day. It was only yesterday I saw him, old and care-worn,
yet in all the nobility of his soul, bearing with stern philosophy the
miseries of misfortune inflicted by the red hand of merciless war,
yielding with dignity and graceful resignation to the necessities
imposed by unscrupulous power, conscious of no wrong, and sustained by
that self-respect the result of constant and undeviating rectitude
which has marked his long life. From childhood our hearts have been
intertwined, and death only has the power to tear them apart. We sat
together long hours, and talked of the past--alternately, as their
memories floated up, asking each other, "Where is this one? and this?"
and to each inquiry the sad monosyllable, "Dead!" was the reply, of all
who were with us at school when we were boys. We alone are left!
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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