[_Vailima_, _September_ 1894.]
MY DEAR CHARLES,—. . . Well, there is no more Edmund Baxter now; and I
think I may say I know how you feel. He was one of the best, the
kindest, and the most genial men I ever knew. I shall always remember
his brisk, cordial ways and the essential goodness which he showed me
whenever we met with gratitude. And the always is such a little while
now! He is another of the landmarks gone; when it comes to my own turn
to lay my weapons down, I shall do so with thankfulness and fatigue; and
whatever be my destiny afterward, I shall be glad to lie down with my
fathers in honour. It is human at least, if not divine. And these
deaths make me think of it with an ever greater readiness. Strange that
you should be beginning a new life, when I, who am a little your junior,
am thinking of the end of mine. But I have had hard lines; I have been
so long waiting for death, I have unwrapped my thoughts from about life
so long, that I have not a filament left to hold by; I have done my
fiddling so long under Vesuvius, that I have almost forgotten to play,
and can only wait for the eruption, and think it long of coming.
Literally, no man has more wholly outlived life than I. And still it’s
good fun.