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CHAPTER IX.
"And that should teach us
There's a divinity that shapes our ends,
Rough-hew them how we will."
Life has no experience so awful as our first acquaintance with death; it comes upon us—that which we never really believed till we witnessed. It has, as it were, a double knowledge to acquire,—when it visits old age, and when it visits youth. Francesca had once before wept over the sudden severing of all human ties, save the sad and fragile links of memory. She had been equally shocked and grieved by the sudden and violent end of her grandfather; but death is the expected of old age—we anticipate its approach even before we know what it is; the full of years seems but to have fulfilled his destiny. Sorrow is subdued by strong necessity; there is no cause why life should be lengthened for our love; and we feel that the worn and the decrepit do but go down into that
