“I have received your letter. I need not say, that the
extract which it contains has affected me, because it would imply a want of all feeling
to have read it with indifference. Though I am not quite sure that it was intended by
the writer for me, yet the date, the place where it was written, with some other
circumstances that you mention, render the allusion probable. But for whomever it was
meant, I have read it with all the pleasure which can arise from so melancholy a topic.
I say pleasure—because your brief and simple picture of the life
and demeanour of the excellent person whom I trust you will again meet, cannot be
contemplated without the admiration due to her virtues, and her pure and unpretending
piety. Her last moments were particularly striking; and I do not know that, in the
course of reading the story of mankind, and still less in my observations upon the
existing portion, I ever met with any thing so unostentatiously beautiful. Indisputably,
the firm believers in the gospel have a great advantage over all others,—for this simple
reason, that, if true, they will have their reward hereafter; and if there be no
hereafter, they can be but with the infidel in his eternal sleep, having had the
assistance of an exalted hope, through life, without subsequent disappointment, since
(at the worst for them) ‘out of nothing, nothing can arise,’ not even
sorrow. But a man’s creed does not depend upon himself:
who can say, I will believe this, that, or
the other? and least of all, that which he least can comprehend. I have, however,
observed, that those who have begun life with extreme faith, have in the end greatly
narrowed it, as Chillingworth, Clarke (who ended as an Arian), Bayle, and Gibbon
(once a Catholic), and some others; while, on
| A. D. 1821. | LIFE OF LORD BYRON. | 563 |
“But my business is to acknowledge your letter, and not to make a dissertation. I am obliged to you for your good wishes, and more than obliged by the extract from the papers of the beloved object whose qualities you have so well described in a few words. I can assure you that all the fame which ever cheated humanity into higher notions of its own importance would never weigh in my mind against the pure and pious interest which a virtuous being may he pleased to take in my we!fare. In this point of view, I would not exchange the prayer of the deceased in my behalf for the united glory of Homer, Cæsar, and Napoleon, could such be accumulated upon a living head. Do me at least the justice to suppose, that
‘Video meliora proboque,’ |
“P.S. I do not know that I am addressing a clergyman; but I presume that you will not be affronted by the mistake (if it is one) on the address of this letter. One who has so well explained, and deeply felt the doctrines of religion, will excuse the error which led me to believe him its minister.”
