(_All-Souls-Day._)
November 2d.
This day is consecrated to the commemoration of the dead. Do you
know, Enrico, that all you boys should, on this day, devote a
thought to those who are dead? To those who have died for you,--for
boys and little children. How many have died, and how many are
dying continually! Have you ever reflected how many fathers have
worn out their lives in toil? how many mothers have descended to
the grave before their time, exhausted by the privations to which
they have condemned themselves for the sake of sustaining their
children? Do you know how many men have planted a knife in their
hearts in despair at beholding their children in misery? how many
women have drowned themselves or have died of sorrow, or have gone
mad, through having lost a child? Think of all these dead on this
day, Enrico. Think of how many schoolmistresses have died young,
have pined away through the fatigues of the school, through love of
the children, from whom they had not the heart to tear
themselves away; think of the doctors who have perished of
contagious diseases, having courageously sacrificed themselves to
cure the children; think of all those who in shipwrecks, in
conflagrations, in famines, in moments of supreme danger, have
yielded to infancy the last morsel of bread, the last place of
safety, the last rope of escape from the flames, to expire content
with their sacrifice, since they preserved the life of a little
innocent. Such dead as these are innumerable, Enrico; every
graveyard contains hundreds of these sainted beings, who, if they
could rise for a moment from their graves, would cry the name of a
child to whom they sacrificed the pleasures of youth, the peace of
old age, their affections, their intelligence, their life: wives of
twenty, men in the flower of their strength, octogenarians,
youths,--heroic and obscure martyrs of infancy,--so grand and so
noble, that the earth does not produce as many flowers as should
strew their graves. To such a degree are ye loved, O children!
Think to-day on those dead with gratitude, and you will be kinder
and more affectionate to all those who love you, and who toil for
you, my dear, fortunate son, who, on the day of the dead, have, as
yet, no one to grieve for.