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me. My knees knocked together, my teeth chattered, the current of my blood,
clotted by sudden cold, painfully forced its way from my heavy heart. I did
not fear for myself, but it was misery to think that we could not even save
this remnant. That those I loved might in a few days be as clay-cold as
Idris in her antique tomb; nor could strength of body or energy of mind
ward off the blow. A sense of degradation came over me. Did God create man,
merely in the end to become dead earth in the midst of healthful vegetating
nature? Was he of no more account to his Maker, than a field of corn
blighted in the ear? Were our proud dreams thus to fade? Our name was
written "a little lower than the angels;" and, behold, we were no better
than ephemera. We had called ourselves the "paragon of animals," and, lo!
we were a "quint-essence of dust." We repined that the pyramids had
outlasted the embalmed body of their builder. Alas! the mere shepherd's hut
of straw we passed on the road, contained in its structure the principle of
greater longevity than the whole race of man. How reconcile this sad change
to our past aspirations, to our apparent powers!
Sudden an internal voice, articulate and clear, seemed to say:--Thus from
eternity, it was decreed: the steeds that bear Time onwards had this hour
and this fulfilment enchained to them, since the void brought forth its
burthen. Would you read backwards the unchangeable laws of Necessity?
Mother of the world! Servant of the Omnipotent! eternal, changeless
Necessity! who with busy fingers sittest ever weaving the indissoluble
chain of events!--I will not murmur at thy acts. If my human mind cannot
acknowledge that all that is, is right; yet since what is, must be, I will
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