Fear not, thou, the hidden purpose of that Power
Which alone is great,
Nor the myriad world, his shadow, nor the silent
Opener of the Gate.
He then spoke his last words, a farewell blessing to my mother and myself.
For the next hours the full moon flooded the room and the great landscape outside with light; and we watched in solemn stillness. His patience and quiet strength had power upon those who were nearest and dearest to him; we felt thankful for the love and the utter peace of it all; and his own lines of comfort from "In Memoriam" were strongly borne in upon us. He was quite restful, holding my wife's hand, and, as he was passing away, I spoke over him his own prayer, "God accept him! Christ receive him!" because I knew that he would have wished it.
Alfred, Lord Tennyson, a Memoir by his son.
Terchout (Adèle—"La Comète"). The gay and thoughtless life of this beautiful young woman ended in sad regrets and bitter remembrances, and yet there is some slight hope that there was with her at last a thought real, if not deep, of better things.
Does any one remember a beautiful girl who went by the nickname of "La Comète," and flashed through the Parisian world during the last year of the Second Empire? She was called "Comet" on account of the exceeding length and loveliness of her golden hair. Théophile Gautier wrote a sonnet to her, Cabanel painted her portrait. Worth dressed her, and Léon Cugnot took her as the model of his statue, "La Baigneuse." Her real name was Adèle Terchout, and just before the Franco-German war broke out she declined an offer of marriage from an elderly duke, with a very ancient escutcheon. At that time she owned one of the finest mansions in the Champs Elysées, had twelve horses in her stables and a bushel of diamonds in her dressing-case. Last week this dazzling creature died in a Parisian hospital absolutely destitute, and the disease which carried her off was the most hideous that could befall a pretty woman—a lupus vorax, or cancer in the face, which totally disfigured her. Like Zola's "Nana," the only vestige left of her beauty when she died was her matchless hair, which measured nearly five feet.
London Truth.
Theophrastus (eminent Greek philosopher. He was a favorite pupil of Aristotle whom he succeeded as President of the Lyceum b. c. 322), about b. c. 374-286. This philosopher's last words are not recorded, but on his death-bed he accused Nature of cruelty. He charged her with having-given a long life to stags and crows, and only a short one to men and women who are so much better able to use for their own good and that of others length of days. He declared that human beings needed long life for the perfection of art. He complained that as soon as he had begun to perceive the beauty of the world he was called upon to die.[47]
Theresa or Teresa ("Saint," Spanish nun, author of a number of devotional books, a visionary of whom many wonderful miracles are related. She was canonized by Pope Gregory XV.), 1515-1582. "Over my spirit flash and float in divine radiancy the bright and glorious visions of the world to which I go." The claim of celestial illumination was made by her throughout her entire life and in the hour of death, but just what were her last words is very uncertain.
At her death-bed the bystanders beheld her already in glory; to one she appeared in the midst of angels, another saw floating over her head a heavenly light that descended and hovered about her,[48] another discovered spiritual beings clothed in white entering her cell, another saw a white dove fly from her mouth up to heaven, while at the same time a dead tree near the sacred spot suddenly burst into the fullness of bloom.[49]