For, rightly, every man is a channel through which heaven floweth, and, whilst I fancied I was criticising him, I was censuring orrather terminating my own soul.
And in me too the wave rises. It swells; it arches its back. I am aware once more of a new desire, something rising beneath me like the proud horse whose rider first spurs and then pulls him back. What enemy do we now perceive advancing against us, you whom I ride now, as we stand pawing this stretch of pavement? It is death. Death is the enemy. It is death against whom I ride with my spear couched and my hair flying back like a young man's, like Percival's, when he galloped in India. I strike spurs into my horse. Against you I will fling myself, unvanquished and unyielding, O Death!
Why then should words challenge Eternity, When greatest men, and greatest actions die? Use may revive the obsoletest words, And banish those that now are most in vogue; Use is the judge, the law, and rule of speech.
Homer was wrong in saying, "Would that strife might pass away from among gods and men!" He did not see that he was praying for the destruction of the universe.
If the union of these States, and the liberties of this people, shall be lost, it is but little to any one man of fifty-two yearsof age, but a great deal to the thirty millions of people who inhabit these United States, and to their posterity in all coming time.