Memoirs and resolutions of Adam Graeme of Mossgray, including some chronicles of the borough of Fendie

INCLUDING SOME CHRONICLES OF THE BOROUGH OF FENDIE BY THE AUTHOR OF “PASSAGES IN THE LIFE OF MRS MARGARET MAITLAND,” “LILLIESLEAF,” “THE DAYS OF MY LIFE,” ETC.
“So he bore without abuse The grand old name of gentleman.”—Tennyson.
LONDON: HURST AND BLACKETT, PUBLISHERS, SUCCESSORS TO HENRY COLBURN, 13, GREAT MARLBOROUGH STREET. 1859. JOHN CHILDS AND SON, PRINTERS.

.... To some kind of men Their graces serve them but as enemies. .... Your virtues, gentle Master, Are sanctified and holy traitors to you. As You like It.
Our birth is but a sleep and a forgetting, The soul that rises with us, our Life’s star, Hath had elsewhere its setting, And cometh from afar; Not in entire forgetfulness, And not in utter nakedness, But trailing clouds of glory do we come From God, who is our home.—Wordsworth.
The first thing which I can record concerning myself is, that I was born.
That I was born! I who now sit in this remote and solitary study, of whose mysteries my good neighbours speak reverently with doubt and wonder, encompassed with things immortal!—the everlasting elements without, the stream, the hills, the fruitful earth, which has been and shall be until the end of time; within with things of life, instinct and inherent, fated perchance to live longer than this present world, the books of men—the Book of God—that out of darkness and sleep and unconsciousness, I was born!
These are wonderful words. This life, to which neither time nor eternity can bring diminution—this everlasting living soul, began . My mind loses itself in these depths. Strangely significant and solemn are the commonest phrases of our humanity; the words which veil the constant marvels of our miraculous life!
But this of “he was born” is greater in my eyes, than that other of “he died.” Say you, He died? say rather, He has changed his garments, has put off a fading robe, which by and by—perchance a time as short in Heaven’s account as are these fleeting days to us—he shall put on again, to wear for ever. But in yonder anxious house, in yonder dim room, with life’s plaintive music rising on his unconscious ear, in wailing and tears, its natural utterance, this wonderful soul began. Be solemn in your rejoicing, ye new mothers, ye glad attendant friends; for this that hath come into the world shall abide for ever, this new existence is beyond the breath or touch of death, a thing immortal, a presence which shall outlive the world.