careless note--he knew only too well that she was past my harming. The
plan for his life had reached an end in early summer.

I sat down near him for a while, thinking of the universal tragedy of
the nest.

It was the second time to-day that this divine wastage in nature had
forced itself on my thought, and this morning the spectacle was on a
scale of tragic greatness beyond anything that has ever touched human
life in this part of the country: Mr. Clay was buried amid the long sad
blare of music, the tolling of bells, the roll of drums, the boom of
cannon, and the grief of thousands upon thousands upon thousands of
people--a vast and solemn pageant, yet as nothing to the multitude that
will attend afar. For him this day the flags of nations will fly at
half-mast; and the truly great men of the world, wherever the tidings
may reach them of his passing, will stand awe-stricken that one of
their superhuman company has been too soon withdrawn.

Too soon withdrawn! Therein is the tragedy of the nest, the wastage of
the divine, the law of loss, whose reign on earth is unending, but
whose right to reign no creature, brute or human, ever acknowledges.

The death of Mr. Clay is one of the many things that are happening to
change all that made up my life with Georgiana. She was a true
hero-worshipper, and she worshipped him. I no less. Now that he is
dead, I feel as much lonelier as a soldier feels whose chosen tent-mate
and whose general have fallen on the field together.

As I turned, away from the overcrowded town this afternoon towards the
woods and was confronted by the wreck of the storm, my thoughts being