towards his young friend. His countenance was sunk, and of a death-like
appearance. "I hope you are better," said Falkland in a half whisper, as
if afraid of disturbing him. Mr. Clare drew his hand from the
bed-clothes, and stretched it forward; Mr. Falkland advanced, and took
hold of it. "Much better," said Mr. Clare, in a voice inward and hardly
articulate; "the struggle is now over; I have finished my part;
farewell! remember!" These were his last words. He lived still a few
hours; his lips were sometimes seen to move; he expired without a groan.

Mr. Falkland had witnessed the scene with much anxiety. His hopes of a
favourable crisis, and his fear of disturbing the last moments of his
friend, had held him dumb. For the last half hour he had stood up, with
his eyes intently fixed upon Mr. Clare. He witnessed the last gasp, the
last little convulsive motion of the frame. He continued to look; he
sometimes imagined that he saw life renewed. At length he could deceive
himself no longer, and exclaimed with a distracted accent, "And is this
all?" He would have thrown himself upon the body of his friend; the
attendants withheld, and would have forced him into another apartment.
But he struggled from them, and hung fondly over the bed. "Is this the
end of genius, virtue, and excellence? Is the luminary of the world thus
for ever gone? Oh, yesterday! yesterday! Clare, why could not I have
died in your stead? Dreadful moment! Irreparable loss! Lost in the very
maturity and vigour of his mind! Cut off from a usefulness ten thousand
times greater than any he had already exhibited! Oh, his was a mind to
have instructed sages, and guided the moral world! This is all we have
left of him! The eloquence of those lips is gone! The incessant activity
of that heart is still! The best and wisest of men is gone, and the
world is insensible of its loss!"

Mr. Tyrrel heard the intelligence of Mr. Clare's death with emotion, but