Upward to the
zenith, Jupiter, Saturn, and the moon past her quarter, trailing in
procession, with the Pleiades following, and the constellation Taurus,
and red Aldebaran. Not a cloud in heaven. Orion strode through the
southeast, with his glittering belt--and a trifle below hung the sun
of the night, Sirius. Every star dilated, more vitreous, nearer than
usual. Not as in some clear nights when the larger stars entirely
outshine the rest. Every little star or cluster just as distinctly
visible, and just as nigh. Berenice's hair showing every gem, and
new ones. To the northeast and north the Sickle, the Goat and kids,
Cassiopeia, Castor and Pollux, and the two Dippers. While through the
whole of this silent indescribable show, inclosing and bathing my
whole receptivity, ran the thought of Carlyle dying. (To soothe and
spiritualize, and, as far as may be, solve the mysteries of death and
genius, consider them under the stars at midnight.)
And now that he has gone hence, can it be that Thomas Carlyle, soon to
chemically dissolve in ashes and by winds, remains an identity still?
In ways perhaps eluding all the statements, lore and speculations
of ten thousand years--eluding all possible statements to mortal
sense--does he yet exist, a definite, vital being, a spirit, an
individual--perhaps now wafted in space among those stellar systems,
which, suggestive and limitless as they are, merely edge more
limitless, far more suggestive systems? I have no doubt of it.
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