In clear, triumphant moments, many times, has rung through the spheres
the prophecy of his jubilee; and those moments, though past in time,
have been translated into eternity by thought; the bright signs they
left hang in the heavens, as single stars or constellations, and,
already, a thickly sown radiance consoles the wanderer in the darkest
night. Other heroes since Hercules have fulfilled the zodiac of
beneficent labors, and then given up their mortal part to the fire
without a murmur; while no God dared deny that they should have their
reward,
Siquis tamen, Hercule, siquis
Forte Deo doliturus erit, daia praemia nollet,
Sed meruise dari sciet, invitus que probabit,
Assensere Dei
Sages and lawgivers have bent their whole nature to the search for
truth, and thought themselves happy if they could buy, with the
sacrifice of all temporal ease and pleasure, one seed for the future
Eden. Poets and priests have strung the lyre with the heart-strings,
poured out their best blood upon the altar, which, reared anew from
age to age, shall at last sustain the flame pure enough to rise to
highest heaven. Shall we not name with as deep a benediction those
who, if not so immediately, or so consciously, in connection with the
eternal truth, yet, led and fashioned by a divine instinct, serve no
less to develop and interpret the open secret of love passing into
life, energy creating for the purpose of happiness; the artist whose
hand, drawn by a preexistent harmony to a certain medium, moulds it
to forms of life more highly and completely organized than are seen
elsewhere, and, by carrying out the intention of nature, reveals her
meaning to those who are not yet wise enough to divine it; the
philosopher who listens steadily for laws and causes, and from those
obvious infers those yet unknown; the historian who, in faith that all
events must have their reason and their aim, records them, and thus
fills archives from which the youth of prophets may be fed; the man of
science dissecting the statements, testing the facts and demonstrating
order, even where he cannot its purpose?
Lives, too, which bear none of these names, have yielded tones of no
less significance.
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