And who is there among us that has reached the middle term of existence, that may not, in the touching phrase of Carlyle, “measure the various stages of his life-journey by the white tombs of his beloved ones, rising in the distance like pale, mournfully receding milestones?”
“When Wilkie was in the Escurial,” says Southey, “looking at Titian’s famous picture of the Last Supper in the refectory there, an old Jeronymite monk said to him, ‘I have sat daily in sight of that picture for now nearly threescore years; during that time my companions have dropped off one after another—all who were my seniors, all who were my cotemporaries, and many or most of those who were younger than myself; more than one generation has passed away, and there the figures in the picture have remained unchanged. I look at them, till I sometimes think that _they_ are the realities, and we but shadows.’”
I have stated that there is no reason known to us why Death should always “round the sum of life.” Up to a certain point of their duration, varying in each separate set of instances, and in the comparison of extremes varying prodigiously, the vegetable and animal organisms not only sustain themselves, but expand and develop themselves, grow and increase, enjoying a better and better life, advancing and progressive. Wherefore is it that at this period all progress is completely arrested; that thenceforward they waste, deteriorate and fail? Why should they thus decline and decay with unerring uniformity upon their attaining their highest perfection, their most intense activity? This ultimate law is equally mysterious and inexorable. It is true the Sacred Writings tell us of Enoch, “whom God took and he was not;” and of Elijah, who was transported through the upper air in a chariot of fire; and of Melchisedek, the most extraordinary personage whose name is recorded, “without father, without mother, without descent: having neither beginning of days, nor end of life.” We read the history without conceiving the faintest hope from these exceptions to the universal rule. Yet our fancy has always exulted in visionary evasions of it, by forging for ourselves creations of immortal maturity, youth and beauty, residing in Elysian fields of unfading spring, amidst the fruition of perpetual vigor. We would drink, in imagination, of the sparkling fountain of rejuvenescence; nay, boldly dare the terror of Medea’s caldron. We echo, in every despairing heart, the ejaculation of the expiring Wolcott, “Bring back my youth!”