“Fervet immensusque ruit.”—Hor.
“His memory long will live alone
In all our hearts, as mournful light
That broods above the fallen sun,
And dwells in heaven half the night.”
Tennyson.
“He was not one man, he was a thousand men.”—Sydney Smith.
When, towards the close of some long summer day, we come suddenly, and, as we think, before his time, upon the broad sun, “sinking down in his tranquillity” into the unclouded west, we cannot keep our eyes from the great spectacle,—and when he is gone the shadow of him haunts our sight: we see everywhere,—upon the spotless heaven, upon the distant mountains, upon the fields, and upon the road at our feet,—that dim, strange, changeful image; and if our eyes shut, to recover themselves, we still find in them, like a dying flame, or like a gleam in a dark place, the unmistakable phantom of the mighty orb that has set,—and were we to sit down, as we have often done, and try to record by pencil or by pen, our impression of that supreme hour, still would IT be there. We must have patience with our eye, it will not let the impression go,—that spot on which the radiant disk was impressed, is insensible to all other outward things, for a time: its best relief is, to let the eye wander vaguely over earth and sky, and repose itself on the mild shadowy distance.
So it is when a great and good and beloved man departs, sets—it may be suddenly—and to us who know not the times and the seasons, too soon. We gaze eagerly at his last hours, and when he is gone, never to rise again on our sight, we see his image wherever we go, and in whatsoever we are engaged, and if we try to record by words our wonder, our sorrow, and our affection, we cannot see to do it, for the “idea of his life” is forever coming into our “study of imagination “—into all our thoughts, and we can do little else than let our mind, in a wise passiveness, hush itself to rest. The sun returns—he knows his rising—