Think of unrecognised Caesar, with his wasting youth,
weeping over the Macedonian's young career! Could Pharsalia compensate
for those withering pangs? View the obscure Napoleon starving in
the streets of Paris! What was St. Helena to the bitterness of
such existence? The visions of past glory might illumine even that
dark-imprisonment; but to be conscious that his supernatural energies
might die away without creating their miracles: can the wheel or the
rack rival the torture of such a suspicion? Lo! Byron bending o'er his
shattered lyre, with inspiration in his very rage. And the pert taunt
could sting even this child of light! To doubt of the truth of the
creed in which you have been nurtured is not so terrific as to doubt
respecting the intellectual vigour on whose strength you have staked
your happiness. Yet these were mighty ones; perhaps the records of the
world will not yield us threescore to be their mates! Then tremble, ye
whose cheek glows too warmly at their names! Who would be more than man
should fear lest he be less.
Yet there is hope, there should be happiness, for them, for all.
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