GEN. xxv. 33, 34.
......So! I let fall the curtain; he was dead. For at least half an
hour I had stood there with the manuscript in my hand, watching that
face settling in its last stillness, watching the finger of the
Composer smoothing out the deeply furrowed lines on cheek and
forehead,--the faint recollection of the light that had perhaps burned
behind his childish eyes struggling up through the swarthy cheek, as if
to clear the last world's-dust from the atmosphere surrounding the man
who had just refound his youth. His head rested on his hand,--and so
satisfied and content was his quiet attitude, that he looked as if
resting from a long, wearisome piece of work he was glad to have
finished. I don't know how it was, but I thought, oddly enough, in
connection with him, of a little school-fellow of mine years ago, who
one day, in his eagerness to prove that he could jump farther than some
of his companions, upset an ink-stand over his prize essay, and,
overcome with mortification, disappointment, and vexation, burst into
tears, hastily scratched his name from the list of competitors, and
then rushed out of doors to tear his ruined essay into fragments; and
we found him that afternoon lying on the grass, with his head on his
hand, just as he lay now, having sobbed himself to sleep.
Pages:
7
8
9
10
11
12
13
14
15
16
17
18
19
20
21
22
23
24
25
26
27
28
29
30
31