Still, Hamlet the
Avenger swears, hesitates, kills at last, and then himself is slain;
Romeo sighs in the ivory moonlight, and love-bound Juliet hears the
triumphant lark carolling his ringing hymn high in the cool morning
air, and says it is the nightingale--Immortals all, the marble god, the
Greek, the Dane, the love-sick boy, the maiden foredoomed to death. But
how short is the roll-call of these deathless ones! Through what raging
floods of destruction have they lived, through what tempests have they
been tossed, upon what inhospitable shores have they been cast up by
the changing tides of time! Since they were called to life by the
great, half-nameless departed, how often has their very existence been
forgotten by all but a score in tens of millions? Has it been given to
those embodied thoughts of transcendent genius to ride in the whirlwind
of men's passions or to direct the stormy warfare of half frantic
nations? Since they were born in all their bright perfection, to live
on in unchanging beauty, violence has ruled the world; many a time since
then the sword has mown down its harvest of thinkers, many a time has
the iron harrow of war torn up and scarred the face of the earth. Athens
still stands in broken loveliness, and the Tiber still rolls its tawny
waters heavily through Rome; but Rome and Athens are to-day but places
of departed spirits; they are no longer the seats of life, their broken
hearts are petrified.
Pages:
109
110
111
112
113
114
115
116
117
118
119
120
121
122
123
124
125
126
127
128
129
130
131
132
133