n in which
digitalis was the prominent medecine. "Yes," I said, "I see how this
is, and it is strange that I should have deceived myself so long; I am
about to die an innocent death, and it will be sweeter even than that
which the opium promised."

I rose and walked slowly to the window; the wide heath was covered by
snow which sparkled under the beams of the sun that shone brightly
thro' the pure, frosty air: a few birds were pecking some crumbs under
my window.[81] I smiled with quiet joy; and in my thoughts, which
through long habit would for ever connect themselves into one train,
as if I shaped them into words, I thus addressed the scene before me:

"I salute thee, beautiful Sun, and thou, white Earth, fair and cold!
Perhaps I shall never see thee again covered with green, and the sweet
flowers of the coming spring will blossom on my grave. I am about to
leave thee; soon this living spirit which is ever busy among strange
shapes and ideas, which belong not to thee, soon it will have flown to
other regions and this emaciated body will rest insensate on thy bosom

"Rolled round in earth's diurnal course
With rocks, and stones, and trees.

"For it will be the same with thee, who art called our Universal
Mother,[82] when I am gone. I have loved thee; and in my days both of
happiness and sorrow I have peopled your solitudes with wild fancies
of my own creation. The woods, and lakes, and mountains which I have
loved, have for me a thousand associations; and thou, oh, Sun! hast
smiled upon, and borne your part in many imaginations that sprung to
life in my soul alone, and which will die with me. Your solitudes,
sweet land, your trees and waters will still exist, moved by your
winds, or still beneath the eye of noon, though[83] [w]hat I have felt
about ye, and all my dreams which have often strangely deformed thee,
will die with me. You will exist to reflect other images in other
minds, and ever will remain the same, although your reflected
semblance vary in a thousand ways, changeable as the hearts of those
who view thee. One of these fragile mirrors, that ever doted on thine
image, is about to be broken, crumbled to dust. But everteeming Nature
will create another and another, and thou wilt loose nought by my
destruction.[84]

"Thou wilt ever be the same. Recieve then the grateful farewell of a
fleeting shadow who is about to disappear, who joyfully leaves thee,
yet with a last look of affectionate thankful