Georgetown weekly news., 1854-11-02
Lofty Lee Correspondence
TO THE \. Y. TINES.

have scarcely the spirits to wave my
pen in weekly salutation toward you. l
have been sitting for an hour past with that
sad, plaintive, and thrilling last letter-Last
letter. think of it!-from the home and the
haunt Of as gentle a poet as ever filed a
niche in the temple Of song. "The gate of
Idlewild is here shut upon the pen that Is
their servant" Such is the conclusion Of
that ''last' letter. l should be less than
woman did [ not confess that when | came
to these words the tear-cups brimmed over
upon the greensward whereon [ was sitting
catching upon my cheek the glowing sunset
rays.
The letter has been in every paper which
have taken up, and to more than refer to
it would be turning to twice told tale
Perciyal, whose early malleability of verse
has given way to his hammering as geolo-
gist, many years since prepared sweet po-
EN- upon Consumption" commencing with
the well known line
''There is a sweetness in woman's decay
but it is reserved for Willis, in the garb of
prose, to prepare one ON the same subject
which far transcends in thrilling beauty the
production of the elder Muse l find it in
this "last' letter. Is it superior, because
the subject is one taken from beside his own
hearths s5one-because born ofhis own heart?
Let me hope | am mistaken in my estimate
of the condition under which this ''last" let
ter was written. wept over it most be-
cause of the tender expression of resignation
abounding in every line.
[ can conceive of no more sublime spec
tacle attached to human existence than a
patient and resigned contemplation of onr
coming dissolution. How etherialized must
become the spirit which, without shudder,
can see Death at hand-nay, smile upon
his grim terrors-tO sing, in the touching
verse Of Tennyson,
GAS we're descending full of hope,
There sits the Shadow feared Of man."
and then feel that the generality of the poet
is denied-that the shadow is not feared by
one!
Death would not be so full of terrors, per-
haps, if it were not so terribly true that it
is the survivors who die. He who cOntem-
plates death feels this truth like pang-he
knows there can be no laying low i the
mould and think no more of me-" and that
in vain he may chide- NAY, nay, you must
not weep, nor let your grief be wild" In
fancy he sees the group of mourners around
the coffin: has coffin-the new widow-the
children, sad from sympathy, but uncon-
scious, really of their loss sand the vacant
chair. He knows where his own grave will
be-perhaps he has walked out to see it.
He thinks of the bitter tears which will be
shed-he counts the sad heart-beats to the
memory of his name-hOw loving eyes will
grow dim over his picture-how for months,
and maybe years after his name has become
forgotten to the new generation of stran-
gers, some familiar object Of his use or Of
his love will bring up the torpid sigh and
the inactive tear. To feel these things, and
yet look Death calmly in the face, one must
be more than the cold philosopher.
Perhaps no man, however much the poet
or the philosopher ever realized death. The
living do not-perhaps | should say, cannot
realize that state Of physical termination
towards even those gone before. We miss
them, and we remember them; but where
are they? Heaven has ordained that prac-
tically
"The dead past should bury its dead"
and we
"Act in the living present heart within and God
o'erhead."
Else would our lives be one state of pro-
longed grief.
1t is this affection which leads so many
rare tancies into the delirious atmosphere of
SDlritualiSm. | was not sstonished when 7
heard, week or two since, that Alice Ca
rey Is well nigh a victim to the deluson of
communion with the departed, growing out
of some attachment placed beneath the sod
Of our mother Earth.
In the words Of our poet, whose sad let
ter has originated this appendix epistle-
-"Alas for man.
The herb in its humility may fall,
And waste into the bright and genial air;
While we, by hands that mnistered in life,