“This grand natural process of the dissolution of all compounds formed in living organizations, begins immediately after death, when the manifold causes no longer act under the influence of which they were produced. The compounds formed in the bodies of animals and of plants, undergo, in the air, and with the aid of moisture, a series of changes, the last of which are, the conversion of their carbon into carbonic acid, of their hydrogen into water, of their nitrogen into ammonia, of their sulphur into sulphuric acid. Thus their elements resume the forms in which they can again serve as food to a new generation of plants and animals. Those elements which had been derived from the atmosphere take the gaseous form and return to the air; those which the earth had yielded, return to the soil. Death, followed by the dissolution of the dead generation, is the source of life for a new one. The same atom of carbon which, as a constituent of a muscular fibre in the heart of a man, assists to propel the blood through his frame, was perhaps a constituent of the heart of one of his ancestors; and any atom of nitrogen in our brain has perhaps been a part of the brain of an Egyptian or of a negro. As the intellect of the men of this generation draws the food required for its development and cultivation from the products of the intellectual activity of former times, so may the constituents or elements of the bodies of a former generation pass into, and become parts of our own frames.”
The greatest mystery of all remains. What of the Spirit—the Soul? The vital principle which bound the frame together has been dissolved; what of the Man, the being of high aspirations, “looking before and after,” and whose “thoughts wandered through eternity?” The material elements have not died, but merely assumed new forms. Does not the spirit of man, which is ever at enmity with nothingness and dissolution, live too? Religion in all ages has dealt with this great mystery, and here we leave it with confidence in the solution which it offers.
Personal Sketches And Reminiscences. By Mary Russell Mitford.[2]
Recollections Of Childhood.
Most undoubtedly I was a spoilt child. When I recollect certain passages of my thrice happy early life, I can not have the slightest doubt about the matter, although it contradicts all foregone conclusions, all nursery and school-room morality, to say so. But facts are stubborn things. Spoilt I was. Every body spoilt me, most of all the person whose power in that way was greatest, the dear papa himself. Not content with spoiling me in-doors, he spoilt me out. How well I remember his carrying me round the orchard on his shoulder, holding fast my little three-year-old feet, while the little hands hung on to his pig-tail, which I called my bridle (those were days of pig-tails), hung so fast, and tugged so heartily, that sometimes the ribbon would come off between my fingers, and send his hair floating, and the powder flying down his back. That climax of mischief was the crowning joy of all. I can hear our shouts of laughter now.
Nor were these my only rides. This dear papa of mine, whose gay and careless temper all the professional etiquette of the world could never tame into the staid gravity proper to a doctor of medicine, happened to be a capital horseman; and abandoning the close carriage, which, at that time, was the regulation conveyance of a physician, almost wholly to my mother, used to pay his country visits on a favorite blood-mare, whose extreme docility and gentleness tempted him, after certain short trials round our old course, the orchard, into having a pad constructed, perched upon which I might occasionally accompany him, when the weather was favorable, and the distance not too great. A groom, who had been bred up in my grandfather's family, always attended us; and I do think that both Brown Bess and George liked to have me with them almost as well as my father did. The old servant proud, as grooms always are, of a fleet and beautiful horse, was almost as proud of my horsemanship; for I, cowardly enough, Heaven knows, in after-years, was then too young and too ignorant for fear—if it could have been possible to have had any sense of danger when strapped so tightly to my father's saddle, and inclosed so fondly by his strong and loving arm. Very delightful were those rides across the breezy Hampshire downs on a sunny summer morning; and grieved was I when a change of residence from a small town to a large one, and going among strange people who did not know our ways, put an end to this perfectly harmless, if somewhat unusual pleasure.
But the dear papa was not my only spoiler. His example was followed, as bad examples are pretty sure to be, by the rest of the household. My maid Nancy, for instance, before we left Hampshire, married a young farmer; and nothing would serve her but I must be bridesmaid. And so it was settled.
She was married from her own home, about four miles from our house, and was to go to her husband's after the ceremony. I remember the whole scene as if it were yesterday! How my father took me himself to the church-yard gate, where the procession was formed, and how I walked next to the young couple hand-in-hand with the bridegroom's man, no other than the village blacksmith, a giant of six-feet-three, who might have served as a model for Hercules. Much trouble had he to stoop low enough to reach down to my hand; and many were the rustic jokes passed upon the disproportioned pair, who might fitly have represented Brobdignag and Liliput. My tall colleague proved, however, as well-natured as giants commonly are every where but in fairy tales, and took as good care of his little partner as if she had been a proper match for him in age and size.