THE METAMORPHOSES OF MATTER. Ill 



and, when the God of nature dispatches Death to garner in 

 the fruits of dissolution, think you to escape the common lot ? 

 O, no, my lady. Ashes to ashes, dust to dust: thus is it 

 written, and thus must it be. 



Fair one, this much of you ; and now of me. When I 

 die, a plain elm coffin awaits me, and that for decency's sake. 

 Nobody will deem it worth the w r hile to solder me up in lead 

 or pewter. Living humanity will have had enough of me; 

 my elements will be free to pass on. And the spirit if spirit 

 it be that thinks within me now would never trouble any 

 one who helped the dissolution ; liberating the elements by 

 some process more rapid than decay. It matters not, save 

 for the sentiment of it, but sentiment may be the spirit-life 

 within, for aught we know, it matters not, but I fancy mine 

 would be an unhappy ghost, could it but look down or up, 

 as the case might be and contemplate the noxious forms 

 that matter can assume whilst striving to be useful according 

 to its destiny. This even when no repressive agency is at 

 work ; the grave willing, ay ready, to resign its burden ; Na- 

 ture caressingly luring the pure elements struggling from cor- 

 ruption to join in her life-long revelry of change and travel, 

 dance and rout, a life-long masquerade. The nitrogen of 

 my substance, Nature wants it ; she will make ammonia of 

 it, and, as smelling salts, would not a ghost, looking on, be 

 gratified to see the pungent salt, in crystal bottled, nestled in 

 the soft recess of a lady's bosom, or warming her delicate nose! 

 Ay, and think of my carbon too : what destinies await it ! 

 Diffusing sweet odours, perhaps from the petals of a rose. 

 Tended gently by fair hands ; helping to make up a floral 

 love-token : why not ? In some form of life and action my 

 carbon must be passing on. Many years must roll by, and 

 many an accident of flood and field must happen, ere that 

 element would be likely to find a resting-place awhile in pit- 

 coal, limestone, marble, charcoal, or the diamond : as one who, 

 tired with dancing or the chase, has gone to sleep awhile, 



