Thus it is, that to each one of us the death of Arthur Hallam—his thoughts and affections—his views of God, of our relations to Him, of duty, of the meaning and worth of this world and the next,—where he now is, have an individual significance. He is bound up in our bundle of life; we must be the better or the worse of having known what manner of man he was; and in a sense less peculiar, but not less true, each of us may say,
—"The tender grace of a day that is dead
Will never come back to me."
—"O for the touch of a vanished hand,
And the sound of a voice that is still!"
"God gives us love! Something to love
He lends us; but when love is grown
To ripeness, that on which it throve
Falls off, and love is left alone:
"This is the curse of time. Alas!