{
  "schema": "tga.work.v1",
  "identifier": "dresden:vol-12:tribute-to-ida-whiting-knowles",
  "slug": "tribute-to-ida-whiting-knowles",
  "title": "A Tribute to Mrs. Ida Whiting Knowles",
  "subtitle": "Memorial tribute.",
  "excerpt": "Memorial tribute to Mrs. Ida Whiting Knowles.",
  "year": 1886,
  "volume": 12,
  "category": "Tribute",
  "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/tribute-to-ida-whiting-knowles/",
  "wordCount": 342,
  "body": "A Tribute to Mrs. Ida Whiting Knowles\n\nNew York, Dec, 16, 1887.\n\nMY FRIENDS: Again we stand in the shadow of the great mystery—a shadow\nas deep and dark as when the tears of the first mother fell upon the\npallid face of her lifeless babe—a mystery that has never yet been\nsolved.\n\nWe have met in the presence of the sacred dead, to speak a word of\npraise, of hope, of consolation.\n\nAnother life of love is now a blessed memory—a lingering strain of\nmusic.\n\nThe loving daughter, the pure and consecrated wife, the sincere friend,\nwho with tender faithfulness discharged the duties of a life, has\nreached her journey's end.\n\nA braver, a more serene, a more chivalric spirit—clasping the loved and\nby them clasped—never passed from life to enrich the realm of death.\nNo field of war ever witnessed greater fortitude, more perfect, smiling\ncourage, than this poor, weak and helpless woman displayed upon the bed\nof pain and death.\n\nHer life was gentle and her death sublime. She loved the good and all\nthe good loved her.\n\nThere is this consolation: she can never suffer more; never feel again\nthe chill of death; never part again from those she loves. Her heart can\nbreak no more. She has shed her last tear, and upon her stainless brow\nhas been set the wondrous seal of everlasting peace.\n\nWhen the Angel of Death—the masked and voiceless—enters the door of\nhome, there come with her all the daughters of Compassion, and of these\nLove and Hope remain forever.\n\nYou are about to take this dear dust home—to the home of her girlhood,\nand to the place that was once my home. You will lay her with neighbors\nwhom I have loved, and who are now at rest. You will lay her where my\nfather sleeps.\n    \"Lay her i' the earth,\n    And from her fair and unpolluted flesh\n    May violets spring.\"\n\nI never knew, I never met, a braver spirit than the one that once\ninhabited this silent form of dreamless clay.\n"
}