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become shorter and shorter , and its treasures drop off , and its attractions are spent , and a few links only of its hours remain in the hand , well may there be no heart for effort and no eye for beauty , and well may love gather itself up to die . But open perfection to its veneration , and immortality to its step , tell it of one who is and will always be the inspirer of genius , the originator of truth , the life of emotion , assure it that all which is loved shall live for ever , that that which is known shall enlarge for ever , that
all which is felt shall grow intenser for ever , and the proximity to death will quicken instead of withering the mind ; the eye will grow dim on the open page of knowledge ; the hand will be found clasping in death the instruments of human good ; the heart's last pulse will beat with some new emotion of benignity . In Priestley ' s case there was not merely a sustainment , but a positive advancement of character in later years . The symptoms of restless ^
ness gradually disappear without abatement of his activity ; a quietude as of one who waits and listens comes over him ; there are touches of sentiment and traces of tears in his letters , and yet an obvious increase of serenity and hope ; there is a disposition to devise and accomplish more good for the world , and ply himself while an energy remained , and yet no anxiety to do what was beyond his powers . He successively followed to the grave a son and a wife ; and the more he was left alone , the more did he
learn to love to be alone ; and in his study , surrounded by the books which had been his companions through half a century and over half the earth , and sitting beneath the pictures of friends under the turf , he took his last survey of the world which had given him so long a shelter ; like a grateful guest before his deunder the turf , he took his last survey of the world which had given him so long a shelter ; like a grateful guest before his
departure , he numbered up the bright and social or the adventurous hours which had passed during his stay ; and the philosophers who had welcomed him in his annual visits to London , the broad , sagacious face of [ Franklin , the benignant intelligence of Price , rose up before him , and the social voices of the group of heretics round the fire-side of Essex-street floated on his ear ; and , as the full moon shone upon his table , and glistened in his electrical machine , his eye would dream of the dining philosophers of the Lunar Society , and glisten to greet again the doughty features of Darwin , and the clear , calculating eye of Watt . Yet his retrospective thoughts were but hints to suggest a train of prospective far more interesting . The scenes which he loved were
in the past , but most of the objects that clothed them with associations of interest were already transferred to the future ; there they were in reserve for him , to be recovered ( to use his own favourite phrase , slightly tinged with the melancholy spirit of his solitude ) * under more favourable circumstances ; ' and thither , with all his attachment to the world whose last cliffs he had reached , and whose boundary ocean already murmured beneath ,, he hoped soon to emigrate .
Untitled Article
236 On the . Life , Character , and Writing * of Dr . Priestley .
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Citation
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Monthly Repository (1806-1838) and Unitarian Chronicle (1832-1833), April 2, 1833, page 236, in the Nineteenth-Century Serials Edition (2008; 2018) ncse.ac.uk/periodicals/mruc/issues/vm2-ncseproduct2612/page/20/
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