“AND HE DIED.”
Genesis v. passim.
Well known is Addison’s reference to an eminent man in the Romish Church, who upon reading in the Book of Genesis how that all the days that Adam lived were nine hundred and thirty years, and he died; and all the days of Seth were nine hundred and twelve years, and he died; and all the days of Methuselah were nine hundred and sixty nine years, and he died;—immediately shut himself up in a convent, an absolute recluse from the world, as not thinking anything in this life worth pursuing, which had not regard to another.
What man is he that liveth, and shall not see death?
“Dead!—Man’s ‘I was,’ by God’s ‘I am’—
All hero-worship comes to that.
High heart, high thought, high fame, as flat
As a gravestone. Bring your Jacet jam—
The epitaph’s an epigram.”