Publisher's Synopsis
Excerpt from The Image Passing Before Us: A Sermon After the Decease of Elizabeth Howard Bartol
A medical phrase; and this one was congenitally a sparkling and vivacious image, whose age kept una bated and undimmed the liveliness of youth, whose octogenarian laugh was as merry, though never loud, as that of youth, and which showed robust intention in a slender frame. It was intrinsic Vigor. I do not think it ever met any person but with a cheerfulness almost gay, a hilarity which was sobriety, like some sel?luminous orb that enlivens as it majestically pro ceeds. The image kept its gloom, gloaming, or gravity for itself. How seriously and invariably it called its own character to account at the bar! How earnestly it pondered, the problem of a future lot! How wistfully it looked to its unworthy companion for information on what the sharpest eyes are as unable as the dullest to discern; and how, when the angel came to loosen the silver cord, not a shadow of the life-long solicitude remained. No whirring of wings was heard! dark angel? Not at all! No such thing! All his terror had been expended long ago, every arrow of his quiver had been shot, his dreadful bow was empty; and he had but to open one gate out and another in. The agony of a birth in 1803 near Washington Gardens, so called, was not repeated in 1883, at a second and greater nativity for one of the oldest citizens, living where born. There was beside a marked humor and an imita tive gift, a dramatic power quite singular in a charac ter so individual and pronounced, although a natural dignity disinclined it to a jest. In former years, it would give impersonations that might have adorned the stage and sang with a sweetness, some will remember, as they must the melody of the speaking.
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