O'er that wide plain, now wrapt in gloom,
Where many a splendor finds its tomb,
Many spent fames and fallen nights--
The one or two immortal lights
Rise slowly up into the sky
To shine there everlastingly,
Like stars over the bounding hill.
The epoch ends, the world is still.

* * * * *

It was on the way home from Laleham, after my uncle's burial there, that
Mr. George Smith gave me fresh and astonishing news of _Robert
Elsmere's_ success. The circulating libraries were being fretted to
death for copies, and the whirlwind of talk was constantly rising. A
little later in the same month of April, if I remember right, I was
going from Waterloo to Godalming and Borough Farm, when, just as the
train was starting, a lady rushed along the platform, waving a book
aloft and signaling to another lady who was evidently waiting to see her
off. "I've got it--I've got it!" she said, triumphantly. "Get in,
ma-am--get in!" said the porter, bundling her into the compartment where
I sat alone. Then she hung out of the window, breathlessly talking.
"They told me no chance for weeks--not the slightest! Then--just as I
was standing at the counter, who should come up but somebody bringing
back the first volume. Of course it was promised to somebody else; but
as I was _there_, I laid hands on it, and here it is!" The train went
off, my companion plunged into her book, and I watched her as she turned
the pages of the familiar green volume. We were quite alone. I had half
a mind to say something revealing; but on the whole it was more amusing
to sit still!