If
England's name is rendered imperishable, it will be through the fame of
Shakespeare alone,--just as we have a kind of tenderness for degraded
modern Greece, because of Homer. Ay, ay! countries and nations are
worthless enough; it is only the great names of heroes that endure, to
teach the lesson that is never learned sufficiently,--namely, that man
and man alone is fitted to grasp the prize of immortality."
"Ye believe in immortality?" inquired Macfarlane seriously.
Gueldmar's keen eyes lighted on him with fiery impetuousness.
"Believe in it? I possess it! How can it be taken from me? As well make
a bird without wings, a tree without sap, an ocean without depths, as
expect to find a man without an immortal soul! What a question to ask?
Do _you_ not possess heaven's gift? and why should not I?"
"No offense," said Macfarlane, secretly astonished at the old _bonde's_
fervor,--for had not he, though himself intending to become a devout
minister of the Word,--had not he now and then felt a creeping doubt as
to whether, after all, there was any truth in the doctrine of another
life than this one.
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