My only comfort is that Charlotte will make her husband happy, and
that he is as nearly worthy of her as a husband can well be.-Believe
me, Your affectionate father,
"THEOBALD PONTIFEX."
I may say in passing that though Theobald speaks of Charlotte's
marriage as though it were recent, it had really taken place some
six years previously, she being then about thirty-eight years old, and
her husband about seven years younger.
There was no doubt that Theobald passed peacefully away during his
sleep. Can a man who died thus be said to have died at all? He has
presented the phenomena of death to other people, but in respect of
himself he has not only not died, but has not even thought that he was
going to die. This is not more than half dying, but then neither was
his life more than half living. He presented so many of the
phenomena of living that I suppose on the whole it would be less
trouble to think of him as having been alive than as never having been
born at all, but this is only possible because association does not
stick to the strict letter of its bond.
This, however, was not the general verdict concerning him, and the
general verdict is often the truest.
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