The Washington herald., 1916-12-21
Attitude Toward Death
By JOHN ID. BAnRY.

Sometimes We see people who seem to
rise, as It were. from the dead.
For an interval they are like chastened
spirits. 1t may take them a long time
70 get back to the discordant ways Of
living. .
. On the other hand, there are those who.
after narrow escape from death, re-
sumo an the old antagonisms that made
lie h1deous for them, They act as IL
they had learned nothing from their
communication with death, as II II had
not even given them a deeper apprecia-
tion Of the beauty Of life
walt Whitman has said some Of the
nnest things ever said In literature on
the subject Of death in his lode to I'm
mortality" He calls death lovely and
soothing, and he celebrates the ap-
proach OF death "serenely arriving, arriv-
ing: III the day. in the night, to all, to
each. sooner or later. eloquent death"
But II you will examine the poem close
~ you will see that. in seemingly cele-
brating death, the poet is really cele-
brating life. He is celebrating the i'm
mortality Of nature, which finds its high
est potential expression in the life Of
man. Many other poets beside Whitman,
nave sung OF the indestructibility of na-
ture. In 1t they include the indestruct-
ibility of the soul
Perhaps. through death the soul makes
It's escape. In giving us its prison with
its nve windows, it may joyously assert
lts relationship to the beauty 1t has been
separated from, the beauty IL has looked
out on, longingly, aspiringly.
In this sense death becomes the finest
achievement of life.
Robert Browning. in his poem Pros
plce' has written inspiringIy of death.
He says:
would hate that death bandaged my
eyes. and forebore,
And bade me to Green past
No! let me taste the whole of It fare
like my peers,
The heroes Of old
Bear the brunL in a minute pay glad
life's arrears
or pain. darkness. and cold.
FOR sudden, the worst turns the best to
the brave,
The black minutes at end
ana the elements rage. the fiend voices
that rave,
shall dwindle. shall blend,
snail change shall become first a peace
out of pain,
Then light, then thy breast,
w. thou soul OF my soul! / shall CLASH
thee again,
And with God be the rest,
Browning had faith. In his mind there
was no doubt that among the dead
IOT ulIn Ile WIG that he
had loved so devotedlY and that he was
to love through eternity Such tsrrors
as death had were slight compared with
the rewards. including the supreme re-
ward to be found in reunion Of SOULS
There is a great difference among peo-
pie In their attitude toward the dead
with some the dead quickly become for
eotten. With others the dead are pain-
ful memories. With still others the dead
NJ
be. o"ouio
In my acquaintance there are two man
VINO think great deal about their dead
one says: After living for more than
sixty years life has become for me a
/ battlefield. I feel at times as n I were
surrounded with the slain.'' He is re-
ierrlng. OF course. to the relatives and
the friends taken by death. The other
man, few years older, saws. "As 7
grow older life grows more beanttTrI
Most Of these nearest and dearest TO me,
IL Is true. have gone out of NV sight:
out they haven't gone out of INV heart
lhey are safe there And they are finer.
and they are more lovable and more en-,
Joyaole than they could ever be in life
All the distracting little qualities that
tney used to have and all the Qualities
,i tna' l dlont happen to approve of or to
IKE nave disappeared. What remains OF
them Is their best" Naturally then he
flnds his dead a rich possession.
One trouble with most Of us I'm our
relation to our dead Is that We take SO
selhsh and so narrow a view. We often
assume that because the dead have been
taken away they are not SO well off
now. ~
Our loss keeps US from rejecting that
the change may be their gain. Incident
ally 1t keeps US from achieving gain from
our loss. - O--'