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102 UNPAINTED PICTURES
Note: This text has been automatically extracted via Optical Character Recognition (OCR) software. The text has not been manually corrected and should not be relied on to be an accurate representation of the item.
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Note: This text has been automatically extracted via Optical Character Recognition (OCR) software. The text has not been manually corrected and should not be relied on to be an accurate representation of the item.
Additionally, when viewing full transcripts, extracted text may not be in the same order as the original document.
—. .* No. Ii.
" the With old the Scandinavian old dying * Si ancestor ward he , I mi felt ght , was have quick exclaimed within iC How him .
, shameful it is for me that I have never been slain in my numerous battlesbut have been saved only to die with disgrace at last
, like an old cur !'' But William Robinson , the old sailor and soldier of the
nineteenth century , was filled with a gentler philosoj ) hy than that of Siward in the eleventh . Dropping his head upon his breastand
, trembling with age and cold , though he sat upon the warm kitchen hearthhe _folded his thin yellow handsand said"Night
and day , day , and night , do I pray our Lord , God to take , me . He saved me in battle , and upon the sea , and in hospital ; I pray
Him now to take me ; for my blood is no stronger than water , my wounds ache night and dayand I have no home . I pray our
, good Lord to take me _isoon—soon , and I know that He will hear jne !"
" How ! " said I , filled with a great compassion for the aged veteran , whose majestic figure shook like an aspen leaf ; " how is
It that you have not been pensioned , have not been provided for in Greenwich or in Chelsea ; for , according to your account , you have
a double claim upon your country ? " He replied that he had his shilling a day , which was his staff of
life , and that he had had an offer of a home in Greenwich ; but that his wife was then living , and that he could not endure to be parted
from her . " She was more than my right hand to me , " he said , " and was always slaving awayand always kept home right and
, snug ; but now she is dead , and I wander about as you see me . " Of his children , he had a long and doleful history to relate . It was
a chronicle of the death of the good and kind , and the ingratitude of the living . Here , truly , was the history of a life , in which all the
stern endurance and combative nature of the old Viking ancestor had found full scope to assert itself once more .
December 18 th . —The old soldier has been here again . We have ascertained why . he is not a pensioner in Greenwich or
Chelsea . The poor old fellow had the conscience to confess to his expulsion from Greenwich ! Alas ! like many an old Scandinavian
ancestorhe had been vanquished by the demon of drunkenness ! The love , for a wandering life seems very rife in him . How could
lie rest contentedly between four walls month after month , and a year stroll after throug year , h with Greenwich nothing or more Chelsea enlivening ! The or old adventurous Scandinavi than an
heroes when they died , desired to have their funeral mounds raised quiet restless high above grave ocean , them mi ; g so ht , that and rise their the up _siDirit throug corpses , when h and laid the it thus mound grew close become weary to and the gaze refreshed m of arg the forth in narrow of over the ,
sense the vast of expanse immensity of , tossing liberty , billows and action , . This deep mighty ye by arn a -
ing after freedom and restless life is rooted firmly in the heart
102 Unpainted Pictures
102 UNPAINTED PICTURES
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Citation
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English Woman’s Journal (1858-1864), April 1, 1862, page 102, in the Nineteenth-Century Serials Edition (2008; 2018) ncse.ac.uk/periodicals/ewj/issues/ewj_01041862/page/30/
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