naccomplished. Can the philosopher, big with the
inspiration of an idea that is to reform mankind, believe that he is to
be beckoned from this sensible existence at the very instant when he is
mustering his breath to speak the word of light? Should he perish so,
the weary ages may pass away--the world's, whose life sand may fall,
drop by drop--before another intellect is prepared to develop the truth
that might have been uttered then. But history affords many an example
where the most precious spirit, at any particular epoch manifested in
human shape, has gone hence untimely, without space allowed him, so far
as mortal judgment could discern, to perform his mission on the earth.
The prophet dies, and the man of torpid heart and sluggish brain lives
on. The poet leaves his song half sung, or finishes it, beyond the
scope of mortal ears, in a celestial choir. The painter--as Allston
did--leaves half his conception on the canvas to sadden us with its
imperfect beauty, and goes to picture forth the whole, if it be no
irreverence to say so, in the hues of heaven. But rather such
incomplete designs of this life will be perfected nowhere. This so
frequent abortion of man's dearest projects must be taken as a proof
that the deeds of earth, however etherealized by piety or genius, are
without value, except as exercises and manifestations of the spirit. In
heaven, all ordinary thought is higher and more melodious than Milton's
song. Then, would he add another verse to any strain that he had left
unfinished here?

But to return to Owen Warland. It was his fortune, good or ill, to
achieve the purpose of his life. Pass we over a long space of intense
thought, yearning effort, minute toil, and wasting anxiety, succeeded
by an instant of solitary triumph: let all this be imagined; and then
behold the artist, on a winter evening, seeking admittance to Robert
Danforth's fireside circle. There he found the man of iron, with his
massive substance thoroughly warmed and attempered by domestic
influences. And there was Annie, too, now transformed into a matron,
with much of her husband's plain and sturdy nature, but imbued, as Owen
Warland still believed, with a finer grace, that might enable her to be
the interpreter between strength and beauty. It happened, likewise,
that old Peter Hovenden was a guest this evening at his daughter's
fireside, and it was his well-remembered expression of keen, cold
criticism that first encountered the artis