Cedar Falls gazette. [volume] (Cedar Falls, Iowa) 1860-1895, 1867-04-05

T
Death.
A Funeral Discourse by victor Hugo
/ An American lady passing the winter
in Dresden, capital Of Saxony, sends To
i the editor of the Philadelphia Press,
the following translation of an address
delivered some months ago by the
French poet, Victor Hugo, at the inter-
ment of Miss Emily De Putron;
i Within few weeks we have been
occupied with two sisters-the one we
have married, and now we are burying
the other. Such is the perpetual agita-
tion OF life. Let us bow, my brethren,
before infiexible destiny, and let US bow
with hope. Our eyes are made to weep,
but they are made to see. Our heart is
believe. Faith in another existence
springs from the faculty of loving
Let us not forget that in this unquiet
life, which Is controlled by love, 1t is
the heart that believes. The son hopes
again to find his father. The mother
| will not consent to lose her child for
ever. This revolt against annihilation
is the grandeur of man. The heart
can never err. The flesh is q dream,
which fades away. This trance, were
1t the end of man, would take from our
existence every sanction. We cannot
content ourselves with this vapor,
which Is mere matter; we must have
certainty. Whoever loves, knows and
feels that the prospects of man are not
upon this earth to love is to live after
life. Without this faith, no deep gift
of the heart We're possible. To love,
which Is the aim of man, would be his
punishment; paradise would be hell.
A vat IL hn II ys,,r~
ture demands the immortal creature
The heart must have sun. There Is a
heart in this coffin, and that heart lives
At this very moment 1t listens to my
words. Emily de Putron was the gem
tie pride of respectable family. Her
] friends and neighbors found enchant-
ment in her graces and pleasure in her
smile. She was like q full blown flower
Of Joy i'm the house. She is gone.--
Whittier is she gomez Into darkness
Mol 1t is we who are in the darkness !;
she is in the dawning light. She is In
the light, in the truth, in the reality,
| In the recompense. These early dead
who have done no iii, are the blessed Of
the grave, and their heads rise gently
! from the tomb towards a mysterious
crown. Emily de Putron has gone to
seek on high everlasting sincerity--the
compliment of an innocent existence.
Youth has gone to eternity, beauty
towards the ideal, the pearl towards the
ocean, q spirit towards its God. The
soul, the marvel of the great celestial
departure which we call death, is here
those who thus depart still remain
near us. They are in world of light,
but they as tender witnesses hover
about our world of darkness.
They are over US and near us. Oh
whoever it may be who have seen such
beloved being sinking into the tomb,
do not think Ii has left you. The beau
ty of death Is its presence. Inexpressi-
bic presence of a soul which smiles
upon our fearful eyes. The being that
we mourn has disappeared, but has not
departed. We no longer see Its gentle
face, but we feel that wave beneath its
wings. The dead are invisible, but
they are not absent. Let us be just to
death. 1t Is not, as has been said, n
ruin and snare. IL Is an error to
think that here in the darkness of the
open. grave, all Is lost to us. There
everything Is found again. The grave
is place of restitution; there the soul
resumes the infinite, there 1t RECEIVERS
its plentitude. There it re-enters on
tine possessfon-Uf all its mysterious ma
tN40 ~ ts Stb iEto lIOIu ttiC DOdy, IOih
want, from its burthen, from fatality.
Dehth Is the greatest of liberties; it IL
also the farthest progress. Death Is a
higher step for all who have lived upon
its height. Dazzling and holy, every
one receives his increase, everything Is
transfigured i'm the light and by the
light. He who has been no more than
virtuous on earth becomes beauteous;
he who has only been beauteous be-
comes sublime, and he who has only
been sublime becomes good. And now
/, who am speaking, why am 1 here ?
What brings me to this grave, and by
what right do i address the dead? and
who am l I? Nothing. But am wrong, !
am something. i am q proscript.-
Yesterday exiled by violence, to-day a
voluntary exile. "A proscript is van
pushed, a illuminated, prosecuted
man. man wounded by fate. A pro-
script Is All innocent man, weighed |
down by malediction. His blessing
ought to have virtue In 1t. bless this |
grave. bless the noble, gracious being |
that lies there. In the desert we find |
the oasis I'm exile; we meet with souls |
Emily de Putron has been one of the
lovely we have met. come to pay her |
the debt owed by a proscript whom she |
has consoled. I bless her in the dark
profund. In the name of the sorrow,
whereon she gently beamsd in the
name of the trials of destiny, which |
for her are ended, but which continue
for US; i'm the name of terrestrial
things which once she hoped for, and
of celestial things, which she now OBJ
tains In the name Of all she loved,
bless this lifeless being; I bless her In |
her beauty, in her youth, In her inno-
cence, in her life, aud in her death. |
bless her in her white sepulchral robes;
in her home, which she has left deso-
late in her coffin, which her mother
has filed with flowers, and which God !
is ahout tn fiil with sfars