g out.
“I see the lives for which I lay down my life, peaceful, useful,
prosperous and happy, in that England which I shall see no more.
I see Her with a child upon her bosom, who bears my name. I see
her father, aged and bent, but otherwise restored, and faithful to
all men in his healing office, and at peace; I see the good old man,
so long their friend, in ten years’ time enriching them with all he
has, and passing tranquilly to his reward.
“I see that I hold a sanctuary in their hearts, and in the hearts
Charles Dickens ElecBook Classics
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 placethen fair to look upon, with not a trace
of this day’s disfigurementand I hea