languages, and innumerable pages of fragments, separated by dates, like
memoranda. "Why should you burn all these?" I timidly suggested; "has
not man a moral as well as a material inheritance to bequeath to those
who come after him? You are perhaps destroying thoughts and feelings
which might have quickened a soul."

"What matters it?" he said; "there are tears enough in this world, and
we need not deposit a few more in the heart of man. These," said he,
showing the verses, "are the cast-off, useless feathers of my soul; it
has moulted since then, and spread its bolder wings for eternity!" He
then continued to burn and destroy, while I looked out of the broken
window at the dreary landscape.

At length he called me once more to the bedside. "Here," said he--"save
this one little manuscript, which I have not courage to burn. When I am
gone, my poor nurse would make bags for her seeds with it, and I would
not that the name which fills its pages should be profaned. Take, and
keep it till you hear that I am no more. After my death you may burn
it, or preserve it till your old age, to think of me sometimes as you
glance over it."

I hid the roll of paper beneath my cloak, and took my leave, resolving
inwardly to return the next day to soothe the last moments of Raphael
by my care and friendly discourse. As I descended the steps, I saw
about twenty little children with their wooden shoes in their hands,
who had come to take the lessons which he gave them, even on his
death-bed. A little further on, I met the village priest, who had come
to spend the evening with him. I bowed respectfully, and as he noted my
swollen eyes, he returned my salute with an air of mournful sympathy.