For my part, I
think he was taken away to have a little more of that care and
nursing which neither his mother nor his wife had been woman
enough to give the great baby. After all, he had not been one of
the worst of babies.
Is it strange that one so used to bad company and bad ways should
have so altered, in so short a time, and without any great
struggle? The assurance of death at the door, and a wholesome
shame of things that are past, may, I think, lead up to such a
swift change, even in a much worse man than Tom. For there is the
Life itself, all-surrounding, and ever pressing in upon the human
soul, wherever that soul will afford a chink of entrance; and Tom
had not yet sealed up all his doors.
When he lay there dead--for what excuse could we have for foolish
lamentation, if we did not speak of the loved as _lying
dead?_--Letty had him already enshrined in her heart as the
best of husbands--as her own Tom, who had never said a hard word
to her--as the cleverest as well as kindest of men who had
written poetry that would never die while the English language
was spoken. Nor did "The Firefly" spare its dole of homage to the
memory of one of its gayest writers. Indeed, all about its office
had loved him, each after his faculty. Even the boy cried when he
heard he was gone, for to him too he had always given a kind
word, coming and going.
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