Wheeling daily intelligencer. [volume] (Wheeling, Va. [W. Va.]) 1852-1859, 1859-11-01
Death Bod Of she Little C.enIIemnn,
THE PRorEssoR's IDEA OF DEATH.

From his table Atlantic Monthly No7emberl
He lifted his shriyclled hand, with the DEATHS
head ring omit, and looked at it with sad sort
Of complacency. By this one movement. which
q have seen repeatedly Of late, I know that his
thoughts have gone before to another condition,
and that he is, asst were, looking back on the
inhrmities of the body as accidents of the past
For, when he was well, one might see him often
looking at the handsome hand with the flaming
Jewel on one of its fingers The single we'll
shaped limb was the source of that pleasure
which IN some form or other Nature almost ais
ways grants to her least richly endowed chill
dren. Handsome hair, eyes, complexion, fea-
ture, form, hand, foot, pleasant voice. strength,
grace, agility, intelligence, how few there are
that have not just enough of one at least Of
these gifts to show them that the good Mother,
busy with her millions of children has not quite
forgotten them! But nov he was thinking of
that other state, where, free from all mcrtal i'm
pedimsntS, the memory of his sorrowful burden
should be only as that of the case he has shed
to the insect whose ''deep-damasked Wings
beat off the golden dust of the lily-anthers, as
he hutters in the ecstacy Of his new life over
their full-blown summer glories.
No human being can rest for any time in a
state eE equilibrium, where the desire to live
and that to depart just balance each other If
one has house, in which he has lived and always
means to live in, he plcases himself with the
| thought of all the conveniences it offers him,
But once having made up his mind to move to
better, every incommodity starts out upon
him until the very ground-plan of It seems to
have changed in his mind, and his thoughtsand
affections, each one of them packing up its lit
tie bundle of circumstances, have Quilted their
several chambers and hooks and migrated to
the new home, long before its apartments are
ready to receive their bodily tenant. tits so with
| the body. Most persons have died before they
expire, to all earthly longings, SO that the
last breath is only, as it were, the locking of
the door of the already deserted mansion. The
fact OF the tranquility with which the great
majority OF dying persons await this locking of
those gates of life through which its airy angels
have been going and coming, from the moment
of the first cry, is familiar IN those who have
been often called upon to witness the lastperiod
of life. Almost always there is preparation
made by Nature for unearthing a soul, Just as
on the smaller scale there is for the removal Of
a milk-tooth. The roots which hold human life
to earth are absorbed before it is lifted from its
place. Some of the dying are weary and want
rest, the idea of which is almost inseparabIe in
the universal mind from death. Some arc in
pain, and want to be rid of it. even though the
anodyne be dropped, as in the legend from the
sword of the Death-Angel. Some are stupid
Incredibly narcotized that-Sthey may go to
Esleep without long tossing about. And some
arc strong in faith and hope,so that, as they
draw near the next world, they wonld fain hur-
ry toward it, as the caravan moves faster over
the sand when the foremost travellers send word
along the file that water is in sight Though
each little party that follows in foot>track Of
its own will have it that the water to which
others think they are Fastening is mirage. not
the less has it been true in all ages and for hui
man beings of every creed which recognized a
future, that those who have fallen worn out by
their march through the Desert have dreamed
at least Of River of Life, and thought they
heard its muruiars as they lay dying.