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Epilogue
The hand that wrote these preceding pages
has been dust these twenty years. The brain that conceived these thoughts and
prompted the action of the hand is lifeless inorganic matter per chance it
nourished the growth of thistles which asses have eaten God knoweth; but he
careth not apparently.
All the atoms of the form
that bound together the tender affections the vigorous mind, the brave pure
spirit into one strong sweet individuality are scattered their identity lost
the soil, the air, the rock, and the rain have absorbed and carried them no
one knows whither. Is anything left of this choice soul beside the
lingering memory in the hearts of those who loved him? A memory that
will be lost when in a few more years these hearts have throbbed their last
and like his have moldered into dust. I have inquired diligently, but all the
experience of mankind yields no answer. Nature is memorably dumb.
Revelations, there is none. Only hope is left a hope based upon the slender
foundation of desire and possibilities. One drifts very near to pessimism
when contemplating the subject of human destiny. Destiny has man any
destiny but to be born to beget and to die? In all the wide earth
there is no answer and the voices of heaven are inaudible to ears of
clay. There is no warmth or cheer in these thoughts, yet it is best to
look facts unflinchingly in the face. Better to know the hard truth
than to cheat myself with soft delusions. The base sands of the desert
are safer footing than swaying branches or ropes of man’s twisting.
Is it then an evil to die
young? Since life must cease to be, is it not well that it should end
ere satiety begins? I think not. The dread of death is so bitter to the
young the idea that there will ever be a time when they are not is
inconceivable, intolerable. Youth feels itself immortal. Tis only the old who
having learned how shabby and full of shame the play is that are willing to
see the end when the light shall be put out and they go home to sleep.
The inevitable conclusion is that if existence begins, but to end in
forgetting and being forgotten, twere better that it never begun. The mass of
mankind seem to be but the merest rubbish whose room in the world is
preferable to their company, but now and then appears a spirit so choice that
it’s blotting out seems a real waste of the most precious material.
Such has always seemed to me the loss of Lee.
Three years after his demise
came that of the friend so often mentioned in these pages the brother of his
heart, the beloved companion of his walks for many years W. C. Lindsey.
Now will I recall this young man his tall slender graceful figure, his fine
pale oriental face, his great velvety dark eyes and delicate mouth. I shall
ever recall his image as I saw him one night standing in the center of a
crowded parlor regarding me with keen anxious gaze a breach had been made in
our friendship an enemy had done it and, alas, it was never mended. In a few
months, he too had passed away shot and slashed to death by confederate
bullets and swords. They two were the flowers of their town superior in
personal appearance, manners, mental endowments and chivalry of spirit to all
the youth of the country.
In sturdy manhood, purity of
principle and generosity, Leroy excelled his friend as he did all other men
whom I have known, yet he was genial and winning and far more lovable than a
majority of his sex.
The death of these two cast a
shadow that can never be lifted upon other lives. Was it well? Was it
ordered for the best? Was it ordered at all? Human reason would answer, nay.
I wish not to be impious but I am constrained to say this is not the
Lord’s doing, but a chance that happened to us. A chance that had its
root deep in the nature of things an inevitable chance, a most awful chance.
Well many a one of the great
flaming flambeaux that joined the processions of life and marched so bravely
beside me have been blown out while my little feeble searchlight with its
flickering glimmer, carefully watched and oft shaded by the hand, is slowly
burning to the socket.
[Author unidentified, but
believed to have been Margaret
Leonice (Needham) Still]
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