The weekly democratic statesman. [volume] (Austin, Tex.) 1871-1883, 1882-06-22
Life is real, life is earnest,
And the grave is not Its goal.
Dust thou art, to dust returnest,
Was not SDnlyan Of tho a.Nul

1t seems to me that the very power that
holds back the hand, when the anguish
of heart bleeding from a cruel wound of
disappointed hopes, would impel us to
seek respite in death, is a demonstra-
ton of the existence of a world beyond
the shores of time. If not. why those I'M
explained fsncies, that secret dread of
what may follow us in another world!
Why does the mind; bouyed on the wings
of Imagination, create an immaterial
world-a place of future abode, and
people it with white-robed spirits? Why
In slumber's mysterious explorations of
that country whose valleys and noun
tains, whose shadows and lights are hid
den from wakeful eyes, does the unfet-
tered soul, in visions and dreams walk
with, converse or watch, with delight, or
mingled emotions of pity and anguish,
those who live in that beyond, II there is
no beyond? If there is no life for which
to hope or fear beyond this, why do de-
parting ones think they hear the footballs
on the shores of eternity? Why do
they fancy they hear the enchanting
music of heavens seraphic choirs, sing
ing in realms of glory the celestial song
of welcome to another immortal spirit
about to change WORLDS? Why does the
face of the dying oftentimes light up with
u rapture that could only be the echo of
an angels smile? Why in the palace of
the king, the home of the scholar, the hut
of the savage, does the same belief find
adherents uniyersally---that there Is
spirit world to which we go from here
Why all this, if there is no spirit world,
if the human soul, which has its highest
impressions in the attributes of mind, is
not to live after the clay that holds it has
been moulded with its mother earth?
To be or not to be can mean more than
to debate as to whether the miseries OF
. -. e, linz
to run the risk of finding worse in the
next. Hamlet's soliloquy was the first
impulsive expression of cowardly
spirit. He would have gladly ended his
life with a bodkin, but that dread of
something after death makes us rather
bear those ills We have than to flee TO
others we know not of. But, no; pause
for a moment, is it better 4" to be, or not
to be- as to this life? 1 am sure that
with every really sane person there will
be but one answer. There is more sun
shine in life than clouds. 1t Is not neces-
sary to delve in the darkness of the mind
to find the diamond, in order that you
may catch quivering light. Walk erect
in the world. God has flooded the world
with sunlight. Then why pause we to
ask if 1t were better to be out of it?
There are more smiles than tears to
greet us each day. For every tear drop
that has been wrung from the heart
by heavy sorrow, the sunshine
of a hundred smiles comes to kiss it
away. Desolate, indeed, must be that
heart which imagines that for it all the
roses of life have been plucked, leaving
only the thorns Yet this kind of woe is
only fancy. There is no star; however
remote or small, that is beyond the sun
light neither is there any human heart
so bereft of friends and love, in this
world, as to find none to have a word OF
cheer and comfort. 1t may feel such to
be its condition, but 1t is a species OF
madness. The gifted, but sorrOw-heart-
ed Byron, in beginning his Pilgrimage,
saws: