THE RANDALL FAMILY 1 83
College, and could not come." He might have been my son, and now I would he had been, for he should not have died. Everybody missed him that had once seen him, and, having noticed us so closely nailed together, had regarded him as part of mc. These country folks are quick to see fine traits, though they do not readily define them. When I next see them, what shall I say . Truly he was become a part of mc — O my gentle, my generous, my brave, my honorable, my faithful, my loving and dearly loved com- panion, must I see you no more } Ah, how much of mean- ness, ever despised by you, will survive you ! " Why should a dog, a horse, a rat have life, and thou no breath at all. Thou wilt come no more."
that he who slew him had but known him ! How would he have cursed the hand that extinguished so sweet a life ! And, had he known him, be he who he might, then might this loyal heart still have beat. Nay, perhaps the rebel who killed him was of all men made to love him. Such are the bitter results of war, where the hand of him who loves the virtues of a rare man is uplifted ignorantly to annihilate, perhaps, the rare man whom he has all his life been in search of.
1 do not wish to replace him. 'Tis enough to have loved and lost. In general I ill make friends with middle-aged people, who for the most part become petrified, like Gul- liver's Struldbruggs, at forty. But I delight in the young when they are innocent, sensible, and unaffected, and would fain detain them forever in that so interesting condition, or at least secure to them, when they change their childish state, that simplicity and sincerity which, when once lost, leaves the man a spoiled and valueless thing.
The freedom of our intercourse was perfect. I was so careful that we might be on equal terms that I sought his
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