{
  "schema": "tga.work.v1",
  "identifier": "dresden:vol-12:life",
  "slug": "life",
  "title": "Life",
  "subtitle": "New York Dramatic Mirror, December 18, 1886.",
  "excerpt": "Ingersoll's famous prose-poem on the whole span of a human life — written for the New York Dramatic Mirror, December 1886.",
  "year": 1886,
  "volume": 12,
  "category": "Essay",
  "author": {
    "name": "Robert G. Ingersoll",
    "wikidata": "Q360326",
    "viaf": "44331023"
  },
  "isPartOf": {
    "title": "The Works of Robert G. Ingersoll",
    "edition": "Dresden Edition",
    "publisher": "C. P. Farrell",
    "year": 1900
  },
  "license": "https://creativecommons.org/publicdomain/mark/1.0/",
  "url": "https://thegreatagnostic.com/works/life/",
  "wordCount": 542,
  "body": "• Written for Mr. Harrison Grey Fiske, editor of The New\n    York Dramatic Mirror, December 18,1886.\n\nBORN of love and hope, of ecstasy and pain, of agony and fear, of tears\nand joy—dowered with the wealth of two united hearts—held in happy\narms, with lips upon life's drifted font, blue-veined and fair, where\nperfect peace finds perfect form—rocked by willing feet and wooed to\nshadowy shores of sleep by siren mother singing soft and low—looking\nwith wonder's wide and startled eyes at common things of life and\nday—taught by want and wish and contact with the things that touch the\ndimpled flesh of babes—lured by light and flame, and charmed by color's\nwondrous robes—learning the use of hands and feet, and by the love\nof mimicry beguiled to utter speech—releasing prisoned thoughts from\ncrabbed and curious marks on soiled and tattered leaves—puzzling the\nbrain with crooked numbers and their changing, tangled worth—and so\nthrough years of alternating day and night, until the captive grows\nfamiliar with the chains and walls and limitations of a life.\n\nAnd time runs on in sun and shade, until the one of all the world is\nwooed and won, and all the lore of love is taught and learned again.\nAgain a home is built with the fair chamber wherein faint dreams, like\ncool and shadowy vales, divide the billowed hours of love. Again the\nmiracle of a birth—the pain and joy, the kiss of welcome and the\ncradle-song drowning the drowsy prattle of a babe.\n\nAnd then the sense of obligation and of wrong—pity for those who toil\nand weep—tears for the imprisoned and despised—love for the generous\ndead, and in the heart the rapture of a high resolve.\n\nAnd then ambition, with its lust of pelf and place and power, longing to\nput upon its breast distinction's worthless badge. Then keener thoughts\nof men, and eyes that see behind the smiling mask of craft—flattered no\nmore by the obsequious cringe of gain and greed—knowing the uselessness\nof hoarded gold—of honor bought from those who charge the usury of\nself-respect—of power that only bends a coward's knees and forces\nfrom the lips of fear the lies of praise. Knowing at last the unstudied\ngesture of esteem, the reverent eyes made rich with honest thought, and\nholding high above all other things—high as hope's great throbbing star\nabove the darkness of the dead—the love of wife and child and friend.\n\nThen locks of gray, and growing love of other days and half-remembered\nthings—then holding withered hands of those who first held his, while\nover dim and loving eyes death softly presses down the lids of rest.\n\nAnd so, locking in marriage vows his children's hands and crossing\nothers on the breasts of peace, with daughters' babes upon his knees,\nthe white hair mingling with the gold, he journeys on from day to day to\nthat horizon where the dusk is waiting for the night.—At last, sitting\nby the holy hearth of home as evening's embers change from red to gray,\nhe falls asleep within the arms of her he worshiped and adored, feeling\nupon his pallid lips love's last and holiest kiss.\n\n*****\n\nFac-simile of the Last Letter written by Ingersoll\n\nUrn Containing the Ashes of Ingersoll\n"
}