PREMATURE ENDING OF LIFE.

Evening Star, Issue 14637, 5 August 1911, Page 2

PREMATURE ENDING OF LIFE.

Tttt, death-of Mr T. E. Taylor is an imjpressiv© illustration of this foot. We see hero a* life suddenly cut down in its .prime. The frequency of this tnigody does little to reconcile us to it. Every now and ngain wo arc arrested by it. In the cemeteries we often coma on the broken columns that- arc 'suggestive witnesses of it". And we know that for one thus commemorated there are a dozen of whom wo hear or so©' nothing. Many writers have referred to this contrast between what seems the caprice of death relative to man as compared with its scrupulous regularity jii the lower forms'of lieiii.tr. In the vegetable and animal world the normal tendency is towards maturity of existence. The plant encases and protects its seed with the meet exact care, so that its principle of life is ready to germinate when the conditions arc favorable, even though it may have to wait hundreds of years to obtain them. Wild r.niniiils seem to have a certain allotted term to each species, which few individuals fail to reach or ex.ceed. But when we come up into the hichest form of life— mini —it is all different. Infancy and age, strength and. imbecility, ' the pure. and the corrupt of heart,' the full and the empty-srmied drop indiscriminately aw ay ; aw if the spirits of men were the cruel sport cf soino high and invisible- demon game — kindled and extinguished in remorseless and capricious jest. Readers of Paracelsus will remember Browning's touching reference to this experience. The. dying poet has just come to see the- meaning and significance, of life aud of his powers to meet them when' Death shadows the door and beckons him away. Ah. the curse, Aprile, the cure© I We cet so near, so very, very near! 'Tis "im old tale, Jove 'strikes the Titans down. Not when they eit about their mountain piling, But when another rock would crown the work And Phaeton —doubtless his first radiant plunge Astonished mortals though the gods were calm. And Jovo prepared hie thunder—all old tales. ******* But they are not old tales. They are fresh as yesterday's newspaper. There is no more pathetic chapter in human history tluin that which records these prematura closings of life's career. Not the least touching is that of Thomas Henry Buckle, the author of 'The History of Civilisation.' He tells in his second volume of that learned work how in early life ha planned out a monumental undertaking. Ho aaw thc visions of it and was entranced. And then after years of toil arid preparation illhealth came and his ideal faded out in smoke. '' It seems to me now more like "tho visions of a disordered fancy than "'the .sober realities of things which are "'and were not." Buckle's disillusionment recalls a similar experience in the life of Dr James Hamilton. He greatly wished to writs a biography of Erasmus. He devoted many years to the accumulation of materials, but ho was baulked of his purpose by one thing after another, and at last he bow it was never to be- realised. So this day, with a certain touch of tenderness, I restored the eleven tall folios to the shelf, and tied up the memoranda., and took leave of a project which has sometimes cheered the hours of exhaustion, the mere thought of which has always been enough to overcome my natural indolence. It is well. It was a chance, the only one I ever ha-d, of attaining -a, small measurei of- literary .<lis'tinotion, and when thene- is ' so much pride and haughtiness of heart it is better to remain unknown. A historian, reviewing the parliamentary session of 1827, takes occasion to observe hew Canning saw every wish of his heart gratifiedi and was just mounting to the highest pinnacle of success. " His sway "in Parliament was unbounded, and he " might hope for a. long career of fame "and fortune." But he was suddeidy snatched away from his hopes and the scene of his glory. After Charlotte Bronte's marriage her friends rejoiced that she was at last entering a period of peace as well as power. She had for a long time been doing business in deep waters, but at length the ship of life seemed to be heading to where "birds of calm sit brooding on the charmed wave."' "But," writes her earliest biographer, Mrs Gaskell, " Gcd's wayd are not our ways. Just as " her happiness seemed to have arrived "came fear, delirium, death." Mosesv.'aa not the first who died just within sight of the Promised Land. And he has had a big following in all succeeding age.-;. What shall wo say is the rationale of these sunsets at noon? That is a difficult question to answer. Much speculation there may be, but they run out at last into mystery which cannot be solved. Within tho physical sphere they follow laws which predestine their destiny and doom. If wo could see deep enough and far enough we should discover in the body tendencies and drifts of disease wheso origin runs far back into dead progenitors. The breaking up of a man's physical constitution maj' be tho execution of a dei-ree that started on its fatal way to the sufferer a thousand years ago. It is fixed in one of the great grooves of the universe, and cannot be dislodged perhaps without giving a .shock to the whole. A life may be cut short without a solitary reason for it which starts with, the sufferer himself. But there are other considerations v.hhh may help to cast a ray of light across tho gloom. For instance, what we call premature, if we knew all, might not in the least appear to be such. There, arc children that we call precocious. They seem never to have had a- spring. Their summer came to thorn without the slow pr-?liminary stages through which others had to pass. .So it is natural that their careers should terminate early. We say " tlieir leaf lias perished in the green." But in reality the fruit w;:,s ripe aud ready to fall. Again, it is possible that these premature endings may be blessings in disguise. History is full of illustrations of men and women outliving their fame, and whose later years destroy ihc, fine, effects of then earlier triumphs. Tnts was the cate, e.g., with that great saint and Christian poet, Charles We*-ley. A sympathetic and compel cut critic eaye i that the last/ 30 years of his life, will not I compare with those of his mighty, etrenuons youth. "They were .sad years in the "main, spent in comparative inaction, and " with, vers- many weary, IL&tlsee, diecon- " tented days." So it has boon with many others. Agaiu, it often happens that an early death, saves parents from tho sorrow' and ehamc of unworthy cons and daughters. Fragile children are called away before the storms of life blow fierce and strong about them—sensitive busineas men before the wreck of tho works which tlieir toil had built up. *#*:»# # * But, however it may bo with those who go, it often happous that it ie -a blessing in disguis-e for many of those who remain. '■:fe-or oujo thing,' it • sends a- serious-thrill throughout public life. It stops for a _ little tho hot raco of trade- and pleasure.

When, things move on in a calm and orderly way we grow accuekm.-ed and indifferent. But the outlash of an earthquake or the sudden darkening of the sun at noonday disturb our sleek dreams of content and commonplace. And eo when Death stamps out. a. prominent and promising life it arrests the. community. It says with an emphasis that cannot bo resisted: " Pause and think !" A mood of seriousness for a. little pcfe-esses even the most flippant. And that is good. For life with, all of us is ever tending towards thoughtlessness and superficiality—at least regarding the higher' ends of existence. It may ecem tragical to reflect that men and women have to be made martyrs for the benefit of others. But it is none the true. Would literature ever have been enriched by Lycidas without the drowning of Edward King? Or would Milton himself ever have done the work he- did but for the- accident that deprived him so suddenly of his comrade. It was the untimely death of Arthur Henry Hailam that consecrated Tennyeon, and turned him away from the shadowy poeturings of ' The Lady of Shallot' into the deathless singer ox ' In Memoriam' and the' Idylls of the- King.' Literature and life are full of transformation wrought by .this sudden arrest of some promising existence in mid-career. When Edmund Burke was addressing hie constituents at Bristol news was brought to him of the sudden death of his political opponent. In an instant he stopped ; then in solemn tones ho said : " What shadows we are. and what shadows we pursue!'' No words of the great orator ever made a deeper impression. But are we shadows and nothing more? That is a further question that these premature endings of life inevitably raise. Is it possible that that is really the end? If it, be, what a pitiful waste. Readers of that profound poem 'Cleon' will remember how Browning deals with the problem. Cleon is a Greek poet, a type of the attitude of Greek thought in its later stages towards the. continuity of life. The sorrow and perplexity of Cleon's life is that be has just come to a consciousness of his full powers—of what he could be and do in this world—when he sees Death arriving and he has to drop it all. He wonders if that can be tfce Hnal end. And lie says : It is so horrible ! I dare at times imagine to my mind borne future state revealed to us by Zeus, Unlimited in capacity Of joy as this in the. desire for joy. The premature closing of life must ever pi ess this problem upon every thoughtful mind. It seems to us that it irresistibly postulates its continuity. We are forced to believe, as l)r Martineau says : That we see here only the partial operation of a higher law ; that we witness no extinction, but simply migrations of the mind, which survives to fultil its high offices elsewhere, and hud, perhaps,, in seeming death its true nativity. The biologist is coming into line with the philosopher in confirming the conclusion that death is the servant and not the extinguisher of life. But, however these things may be, there is a certain sense in which such an ending of life is to be desired. There is nothing that the active, energetic man dreads so much as to have it said of him '• Superfluous lags the veteran on the stage." An extinct volcano smothered in its own slag and all its tires turned to ashes is not an exhilarating sight. One prefers to say, with Charles Kingsley : Fair death to fall in teeming June, When every seed which drops to earth Takes root and wins a second birth _ From steaming showers and gleaming .noon. There- is sound sense in the old proverb ■' Better to burn out than to rust out." Life has often been compared to a river. And many a. river, as it neurs the seabecomes a very unattractive thing. It shuffles on towards its end straggling and confused. Silent, lonely, passive, moving not of itself, but of the tides, it becomes hour by hour less river and more sea, and dies by inches in its sleep. But k, few run a swift course and leap gleefully from heights into the arras of the wailing ocean. And some of us will agree with Robert Louis Stevenson. Speaking of death catching people thus in midcareer, laying out vast projects, flushed with hope, and their mouths full of boastful language, he writes : Is there not something brave and spirited in such ;i, termination, and does not life go down with a better grace foaming in full body over a precipice than miserably struggling to an end in sandy deltas?