Long it seems in sorrow musing—­
    Fair she stood, with face aglow,
      In my heart a hope infusing. 
    Now I linger at the grave,
    While the winds of Winter rave.

    “When we meet,” the words are ringing
      Clear as when they left her lips,
    Clear as when her faith upspringing
      Fronted life and life’s eclipse—­
    Rest, dear heart, dear hands, dear feet,
      Rest; in spite of Death’s endeavour,
    Thou art mine; we soon shall meet,
      Ocean, Death be passed for ever. 
    Thus I linger by the grave,
    Cherishing the hope she gave.

John Jervis Beresford, M.A.

(Author of “Last Year’s Leaves.”)

LONGEVITY.

By W.F.  Ainsworth, F.S.A.

Disdain of the inevitable end is said to be the finest trait of mankind.  Some profess to be weary of life, of its pains and penalties, its anxieties and sufferings, and to look upon death as a relief.  Such states of mind are not real; they are either assumed or affected.  No one can really hold the unsparing leveller—­dreaded of all—­in contempt.  As to pretended wearisomeness of life, laying aside the love of life and fear of death, which are common to all mankind, there are habits and ties of affection, joys and hopes that never depart from us and make us cling to existence.

There are, no doubt, pains and sufferings which make many almost wish for the time being for death as a release; but these pass away.  Time assuages all grief, as Nature relieves suffering beyond endurance by fainting and insensibility.  Man may nerve himself to death or become resigned to it and meet it even with cheerfulness; and he may, in all sincerity of heart, offer up his life to his Maker to save that of a beloved one; but there is a latent—­an unacknowledged—­yet an irrepressible reserve in such frames of mind.

Few men can prepare for death, or offer themselves up for a sacrifice, without feelings of a mixed nature playing a part in the act; whether forced or springing from self-abnegation.  As to suicide, it is inevitably accompanied by certain—­albeit various and different—­degrees of mental alienation or disease.  No one who is in a really healthy state of mind, whose faculties are perfectly balanced, or who is at peace with God and man, commits suicide.  The temporary exaltation of grief, despondency or disappointment produces as utter a state of insanity as disease itself.

Man, as a rule, desires to live.  It is part of his nature to do so; and exceptions to the rule are rare and unnatural—­so much so that they in all cases imply a certain degree of mental alienation.  Even the weariness, lassitude and despondency which lead some to talk of death as a release is mainly to be met with in the pampered and the idle.  Such feelings, no doubt, take possession also of the poor and the lowly; but that, mostly, when there is no work or no incitement to it.  There is always joy and happiness in work and in doing one’s duty.