I should have preferred St. Louis's Hospital.
I feel more _at home_ there. _Enfin_!..." Is there in the martyrology of
poets any passage sadder than these lines? Just think of a man so bereft
of home and family, so accustomed to the common cot of the hospital, so
familiar to hospital sights and sounds and odors, that he can associate
home with the public ward! Poor Murger!
So lived and so died the poet of youth, and of ambitious, struggling,
hopeful poverty. We describe not his funeral, nor the monument reared
over his grave. Our heart fails us at sight of these sterile honors.
They are ill-timed. What boot they, when he on whom they are bestowed is
beyond the reach of earthly voices? The ancients crowned the live animal
they selected as the sacrifice for their altars; it saw the garlands of
flowers which were laid on its head, and the stately procession which
accompanied it, and heard the music which discoursed of its happiness.
* * * * *
THE GREAT AIR-ENGINE.
There is an odd collection of houses, and a stretch of green, with half
a dozen old elms, raspberry-bushes, and pruned oaks growing on it,
opening out from this window where I work; this morning, they blended
curiously with this old story that I want to tell you, helping me to
understand it better.
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