Sc.
Life (Vol. vii., pp. 429. 608.).—Compare with the lines quoted by your correspondents those of Moore, entitled "My Birthday," the four following especially:
"Vain was the man, and false as vain,
Who said[[9]], 'Were he ordain'd to run
His long career of life again,
He would do all that he had done.'"
Many a man would gladly live his life over again, were he allowed to bring to bear on his
second life the experience he had acquired in that past. For in the grave there is no room, either for ambition or repentance; and the degree of our happiness or misery for eternity is proportioned to the state of preparation or unpreparation in which we leave this world. Instead of many a man, I might have said most good men; and of the others, all who have not passed the rubicon of hope and grace. The vista of the past, however, appears a long and dreary retrospect, and any future is hailed as a relief: yet on second and deeper thought, we would mount again the rugged hill of life, and try for a brighter prospect, a higher eminence.
Jarltzberg.
Footnote 9:[(return)]