Labours of the Antiquary

There is an exquisite pleasure in reviving the memory of past days from the dust scattered over it by time, of which none but those engaged in the pursuit can have an idea of.

Imagination loves to look back upon former ages, and fill up the remaining outline, which seems so dull to the incurious, with colors more vivid even than they ever possessed in reality.

So memory in old age throws a fairy gleam over the enjoyments of youth, more enchanting than the light in which they appeared when present.

These are the feelings which actuate the labours of the antiquary of true taste ; reviving the features of the dead, and the manners and acts of ages that are gone.

Found in Record of the Bartholomew family
By George Wells Bartholomew · 1885

 

I shall use my time

I would rather
be ashes than dust!

I would rather
that my spark should burn out
in a brilliant blaze

than it should be stifled by dry-rot.

I would rather
be a superb meteor,

every atom of me
in magnificent glow,

than a sleepy and permanent planet.

The function of man is to live,

not to exist.

I shall not waste my days
trying to prolong them.

I shall use my time.


The above is "said" to be
Jack London's 'Credo'

Time's swift tide

When we shall have passed away, may some pilgrim linger near the spot where we are laid, perchance bestow a passing glance or smile of recognition on the name of him whose motives were unselfish, whose humble deeds live on making the very atmosphere heavy with the sweet perfume of goodness.


When beauty's face with youth no longer glows,
When Time's swift tide for us no longer flows.
May children's children read, some far off day,
The name above our long-forgotten clay.
And find a fragrant blossom o'er our dust,
Which breathes a benediction of the just.
Official Report of the American Tyler Family Reunion

Fear in a Handful of Dust

I will show you fear in a handful of dust.
T.S. Eliot
That was what Dr. Adit Gadh said in response to Brennan’s inquiry about how no one missed the victim after she died . . . he continued with . . .



"We don't actually fear death;
we fear that no one will notice our absence."
Bones, Season 6, Episode 9

The River Note

And I behold once more
My old familiar haunts; here the blue river,
The same blue wonder that my infant eye
Admired, sage doubting whence the traveller came,--
Whence brought his sunny bubbles ere he washed
The fragrant flag-roots in my father's fields,
And where thereafter in the world he went.
Look, here he is, unaltered, save that now
He hath broke his banks and flooded all the vales
With his redundant waves.
Here is the rock where, yet a simple child,
I caught with bended pin my earliest fish,
Much triumphing,--and these the fields
Over whose flowers I chased the butterfly,
A blooming hunter of a fairy fine.
And hark! where overhead the ancient crows
Hold their sour conversation in the sky:--
These are the same, but I am not the same,
But wiser than I was, and wise enough
Not to regret the changes, tho' they cost
Me many a sigh. Oh, call not Nature dumb;
These trees and stones are audible to me,
These idle flowers, that tremble in the wind,
I understand their faery syllables,
And all their sad significance. The wind,
That rustles down the well-known forest road--
It hath a sound more eloquent than speech.
The stream, the trees, the grass, the sighing wind,
All of them utter sounds of 'monishment
And grave parental love.
They are not of our race, they seem to say,
And yet have knowledge of our moral race,
And somewhat of majestic sympathy,
Something of pity for the puny clay,
That holds and boasts the immeasurable mind.
I feel as I were welcome to these trees
After long months of weary wandering,
Acknowledged by their hospitable boughs;
They know me as their son, for side by side,
They were coeval with my ancestors,
Adorned with them my country's primitive times,
And soon may give my dust their funeral shade.


Ralph Waldo Emerson
25 May 1803 - 27 April 1882

I have a hope beyond the grave

It is now night

and all is silent.
I am here alone
and in silence 
all my past friends
with all my relations
fall heavy on my mind.

They all are gone,
and I too must soon follow.

To be laid in the dust 
in the silent grave
and there to be 
forever forgotten
makes the cold chills 
run over my whole body.

I have a hope beyond the grave.

That hope is that 
when I am consigned 
to my grave,
someone on the earth 
might remember me.


From the Diary of Joseph Kemp

April 1, 1853

From The Tri-County Genealogical Society in Missouri. Found today while researching Cole Younger (a distant cousin), who died on this date in 1916. A fellow blogger once had this quote featured on their family history blog, stating that they first heard it on the BYU channel while watching the series, "Ancestors." I have not yet (as of 2009) found other references to a diary of a Joseph Kemp.