To Keep A Life You Love Beside You

“I see that I hold a sanctuary in their hearts, and in the hearts of their descendants, generations hence. I see her, an old woman, weeping for me on the anniversary of this day. I see her and her husband, their course done, lying side by side in their last earthly bed, and I know that each was not more honoured and held sacred in the other’s soul, than I was in the souls of both.

“I see that child who lay upon her bosom and who bore my name, a man winning his way up in that path of life which once was mine. I see him winning it so well, that my name is made illustrious there by the light of his. I see the blots I threw upon it, faded away. I see him, foremost of just judges and honoured men, bringing a boy of my name, with a forehead that I know and golden hair, to this place — then fair to look upon, with not a trace of this day’s disfigurement — and I hear him tell the child my story, with a tender and a faltering voice.

“It is a far, far better thing that I do, than I have ever done; it is a far, far better rest that I go to, than I have ever known.”

by Charles Dickens (February 7, 1812 – June 9, 1870)
from A Tale of Two Cities

Oh, Sydney Carton, you are a true hero. Condemn me for praising you, tell me that I am besotted of a tarnished old fashioned world, irrelevant to the quicker pace of modern life. But who with a heart could not be moved by your subtle sincerity, your rightly guided passion, your calm bravery? For to die with great cause is a far, far better thing than to live in hapless vain. Purest joy in such death can be found than in the baser pleasures of one's life. A second chance was not made to be given, but to be taken: willfully, lovingly. Your gentle embrace of of Madame Guillotine was the softest she ever felt, for scarcely had she felt so noble a gesture from one unknown who had laid his heart down so serenely: For you were not his mortal slayer, my lady, but his transcendental savior.

"I am the resurrection, and the life: he that believeth in me, though he were dead, yet shall he live. And whosoever liveth and believeth in me shall never die."

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