Page:Letters of Life.djvu/406

394 before the hour of retirement. Down go the parted sticks, thankful that their day's work is done, perhaps proud if it has been well performed. Up mounts the flickering flame, tracing pictures on the wall, unwilling to be dismissed, the spirit rising over the wreck of the body. Around the fading coals the white ashes gather, like legends of a buried dynasty, soon themselves to sink in oblivion. Such a good time is it for reverie that I linger until scarcely a brand remains to be covered, as seed for the following day. Often am I reminded of that sublime passage of Israel's poet-king:

"While I was musing the fire burned: then spake I with my tongue. Lord, make me to know mine end, and the measure of my days, what it is; that I may know how frail I am."

These severed boughs from my own domain emit a pleasant odor from their funeral pyre, as if with Christian forgiveness they blessed me even in martyrdom. So much for the sprawling apple trees that I at first scorned and derided. Do they not enforce the lesson taught by the "great sheet, knit at the four corners, not to call any thing common or unclean"?

Since the departure of my daughter to her own abode, I have had the society of several young companions. They have been in different degrees lovely, intelligent, accomplished, or efficient. I was attached to each, and regard them all as friends. Two are presiding happily over homes of their own, and one has