AFTER DEATH

EDWIN ARNOLD

SIR EDWIN ARNOLD (1832- ) is an English poet whose long residence in India has made him familiar with Eastern legends. His most popular poem is "The Light of Asia."

Yet I smile, and whisper this, —
"I am not that thing you kiss;
Cease your tears and let it lie;
It was mine, it is not I."

Sweet friends, what the women lave
For the last sleep of the grave,
Is a tent which I am quitting,
Is a garment no more fitting,
Is a cage from which, at last,
Like a bird my soul hath passed.

What ye lift upon the bier

Is not worth a wistful tear.
'Tis an empty seashell, one
Out of which the pearl is gone;
The shell is broken, it lies there;
The pearl, the all, the soul, is here.
'Tis an earthen jar whose lid
Allah sealed, the while it hid
That treasure of his treasury,
A mind that loved him; let it lie.
Let the shard be earth's once more,
Since the gold shines in his store.

Now the long, long darkness ends,
Yet ye wail, my foolish friends,

While the man whom ye call "dead"
In unspoken bliss instead

Lives, and loves you; lost, 't is true,
To the light which shines for you;
But in light ye cannot see

Of unfulfilled felicity,

And enlarging paradise,

Lives the life that never dies.

Farewell, friends! Yet not farewell;
Where I am ye too shall dwell.

I am gone before your face

A moment's time, a little space.

When ye come where I have stepped,
Ye will wonder why ye wept;

Ye will know, by wise love taught,

That here is all and there is naught.
Weep awhile if ye are fain,-

CHARACTER OF PRESIDENT LINCOLN

NOTE.

RALPH WALDO EMERSON

This address was delivered at the exercises held in memory of Lincoln at Concord, Mass., April 19, 1865.

The President stood before us as a man of the people. He was thoroughly American, had never crossed the sea, 5 had never been spoiled by English insularity or French dissipation; a quite native, aboriginal man, as an acorn from the oak; no aping of foreigners, no frivolous accomplishments, Kentuckian born, working on a farm, a flatboatman, a captain in the Black Hawk war, a country 10 lawyer, a representative in the rural legislature of Illinois; on such modest foundations the broad structure of his fame was laid. How slowly, and yet by happily prepared steps, he came to his place! . . .

A plain man of the people, an extraordinary fortune 15 attended him. He offered no shining qualities at the first encounter; he did not offend by superiority. He had a face and manner which disarmed suspicion, which inspired confidence, which confirmed good will. He was a man without vices. He had a strong sense of duty, which 20 it was very easy for him to obey. Then he had what

farmers call a long head; was excellent in working out the sum for himself; in arguing his case and convincing you fairly and firmly.

Then it turned out that he was a great worker; had prodigious faculty of performance; worked easily. In a host of young men that start together and promise so many brilliant leaders for the next age, each fails on trial; one by bad health, one by conceit, or by love of pleasure, or lethargy, or an ugly temper, each has some disqualifying fault that throws him out of the career. But this man was sound to the core, cheerful, persistent, all right for labor, and liked nothing so well. . . .

Then his broad good humor, running easily into jocular 10 talk, in which he delighted and in which he excelled, was a rich gift to this wise man. It enabled him to keep his secret; to meet every kind of man and every rank in society; to take off the edge of the severest decisions; to mask his own purpose and sound his companion; and 15 to catch with true instinct the temper of every company he addressed. And, more than all, it is to a man of severe labor, in anxious and exhausting crises, the natural restorative, good as sleep, and is the protection of the overdriven brain against rancor and insanity.

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He is the author of a multitude of good sayings, so disguised as pleasantries that it is certain they had no reputation at first but as jests; and only later, by the very acceptance and adoption they find in the mouths of millions, turn out to be the wisdom of the hour. I am 25 sure if this man had ruled in a period of less facility in printing, he would have become mythological in a very