"'Ah, my young friend,' said the dying man, 'I feel that I have but a few minutes to live. I am dying even while I speak; but I shall die perfectly happy if you will tell me whether zat was your breakfast or your dinnaire?'"
William J. Florence.
[A] From "Florence Fables," by William J. Florence (Comedian), just published by Belford, Clarke & Co. Copyrighted, 1888.
"FORGET-ME-NOT."
"Forget—forget me not!"
Vain, piteous human prayer!
We all are doomed to be forgot;
It is, alas! the common lot
Of mortals everywhere.
'Tis everywhere the same;
Over the olden stone
That bears the once dear dead one's name,
Whom love and tears could not reclaim,
The willow weeps alone!
There is no sadder thought
Of death and its sweet rest
Than that we are so soon forgot—
E'en in those hearts remembered not,
That we have loved the best.
It hath been so, and must
So be for aye and aye:
And though it seemeth hardly just,
Affection will not cling to dust,
Nor linger with decay.
Where'er above the dead
The gentle willow waves,
The warmest tears are ever shed,
The freshest flowers ever spread,
Over the freshest graves!
Thomas Hubbard.
CERTAIN ANCESTORS OF PRESIDENT CLEVELAND.
President Cleveland's Great-Great-Grandfather in Halifax—"Mather's Church," the First Dissenting Meeting-house—Some Rare Antique Books—St. Matthew's Church—The Poet Cleveland and Others—A Poem—A Repartee.
On Pleasant Street facing Spring Garden Road—two aristocratic avenues of residence in the city of Halifax, Nova Scotia—is St. Matthew's Congregational Church. To sight-seekers from "the States" who during the last three years have visited Halifax this ecclesiastical building has become a place of especial interest. An ancestor of President Cleveland was the first pastor of the society; and through the influence of Rev. Aaron Cleveland, the first non-conforming church in British North America was built. It stood at the corner of the present Hollis and Prince streets, upon what now is the site of the Halifax Club, a portion of the building being occupied by Doull & Miller's dry-goods store.