The Last Man


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which he has been wrecked, when the saving ship rides by. Such was his  
plan.  
To leave the country of our fathers, made holy by their graves!--We could  
not feel even as a voluntary exile of old, who might for pleasure or  
convenience forsake his native soil; though thousands of miles might divide  
him, England was still a part of him, as he of her. He heard of the passing  
events of the day; he knew that, if he returned, and resumed his place in  
society, the entrance was still open, and it required but the will, to  
surround himself at once with the associations and habits of boyhood. Not  
so with us, the remnant. We left none to represent us, none to repeople the  
desart land, and the name of England died, when we left her,  
In vagabond pursuit of dreadful safety.  
Yet let us go! England is in her shroud,--we may not enchain ourselves to  
a corpse. Let us go--the world is our country now, and we will choose for  
our residence its most fertile spot. Shall we, in these desart halls, under  
this wintry sky, sit with closed eyes and folded hands, expecting death?  
Let us rather go out to meet it gallantly: or perhaps--for all this  
pendulous orb, this fair gem in the sky's diadem, is not surely  
plague-striken--perhaps, in some secluded nook, amidst eternal spring,  
and waving trees, and purling streams, we may find Life. The world is vast,  
and England, though her many fields and wide spread woods seem  
interminable, is but a small part of her. At the close of a day's march  
over high mountains and through snowy vallies, we may come upon health, and  
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