Survivor

“ And no man was so full of glee;
To say the least, four counties round
Had heard of Simon Lee;
His master's dead, and no one now
Dwells in the hall of Ivor;
Men, dogs, and horses, all are dead;
He is the sole survivor. ”

“ I'm a survivor—a survivor of a general wreck. You see," she added, "how that's to be taken into account—that everyone else has gone. When I was ten years old there were, with my father and my mother, six of us. I'm all that's left. But they died," she went on, to be fair all round, "of different things. Still, there it is. And, as I told you before, I'm American. ”

“ We must all die; nor leave survivor nor heir to the wide inheritance of earth. We must all die! The species of man must perish; his frame of exquisite workmanship; the wondrous mechanism of his senses; the noble proportion of his godlike limbs; his mind, the throned king of these; must perish. Will the earth still keep her place among the planets; will she still journey with unmarked regularity round the sun; will the seasons change, the trees adorn themselves with leaves, and flowers shed their fragrance, in solitude? ”

“ From these instances of knowledge shown by the departed of events which seem wholly terrene, I pass to knowledge of events which seem in some sense more nearly concerned with the spirit-world. We have, as already hinted, a considerable group of cases where a spirit seems to be aware of the impending death of a survivor. ”

“ The children had often discussed and pondered over this subject together, and had made a compact that whichever of them died first should, if possible, appear to the survivor, and thus solve the awful problem of a future life. ”

“ The survivor, who seems to have been the founder of his own fortune—novus homo—became eminently distinguished for his fine poetical talents, and composed a volume of lyrics, which have passed through innumerable editions. The one hundred [Pg 617] and forty-fourth of the series is supposed, by the critics, to have been commemorative of this very affair of honor—Blessed be the Lord, my strength, who teacheth my hands to war, and my fingers to fight. ”

“ Why linger over the perpetual sufferings of the survivors? They themselves could never recall to their memory a clear vision of what had happened in the week after their horrible discovery of the remains of the crew. ”

“ Many a one, as you may well suppose, in the five and twenty years that have passed has been taken away by death, whom neither entreaties nor exertions can compel to relinquish his prey, however desperately the survivors try to hold fast in their hands the vanishing threads of a life so dear. ”

“ Alas! the deaths are so sudden and numerous and frightful that there is hardly time to bury the dead. During day the survivors are chained to the earth by hard but necessary toil; and only in the evening, when they return from the fields, are they able, though sinking with fatigue, to dig those other furrows, in which their brethren are to lie heaped like grains of corn. ”

“ Leef agreed. "But—it's better to hang a man before than after. I liked the way you put that survival business yesterday, Queen Celeste. 'Survival of the strongest' seems to me a better expression than 'survival of the fittest.' And yet, the strongest are generally the fittest. I find myself wondering—who will be the survivors, the two survivors, of this, Hell's Island?" ”

“ The lean and feeble survivors had not energy enough to bear the bodies of their kindred to the funeral pile or to the holy river, or even to scare away the jackals and vultures, who fed on human remains in the face of day. ”

“ He obliges his survivors to draw down the blinds of the house in which he expires, and, for the inside of a week, they sit in gloom, a sort of pariahs, coming and going with fugitive swiftness, miserable all, until it is convenient to him to be buried. ”

“ The human races of each world receive the same ministry of the Sons of God and enjoy the presence of the ministering spirits of time. After natural death all types of ascenders fraternize as one morontia family on the mansion worlds. 2. Sleeping Survivors. All mortals of survival status, in the custody of personal guardians of destiny, pass through the portals of natural death and, on the third period, personalize on the mansion worlds. ”

“ Indeed, the whole question at issue throughout the work takes for granted what we must all have observed to be a very favourite object with survivors--viz. that the characters of various persons, as they pass away, will be always spoken of, and freely discussed, by those who survive them. ”

“ The survivors made their way to land, reaching it a short distance below their starting-point, and here they assembled, to commiserate with each other upon their hapless lot and determine how they were to reach home. ”

“ If they will only hold their hands until the season is over, he promises them a royal carnival, when all grudges can he settled and the survivors may toss the non-survivors overboard and arrange a story as to how the missing men were lost at sea. ”

“ Such of them as were so constituted as to be miserable and rebellious would die; and, in the end, the balance being permanent, the survivors would become as well adapted to the conditions of underground life, and as happy in their way, as the Upper-world people were to theirs. ”

“ They fear this very much, and, in order to avert it, the survivors, during the critical days, are bound to observe certain precautions. Similar legends as to the many difficulties besetting the long journey of souls to the land of the dead are to be found amongst most races. ”

“ In providing for the comfort of the dead the survivors show themselves remarkably thoughtful. No male Wend is buried without his pipe, no married female without her bridal dress. Children are given toys, and eggs, and apples. ”

“ The fate of their comrades, however, seemed in no wise to dismay or act as a deterrent to the survivors, who, five in number, pressed resolutely on and, finding bottom, rose in quick succession to their feet and proceeded to scramble ashore, actually passing between the bodies of their dead and dying companions, and noticing them only to thrust them roughly aside in their eagerness to get to grips with their enemies. ”

“ The fittest survive.
What is meant by the fittest?
Not the strongest; not the cleverest—
Weakness and stupidity everywhere survive.
There is no way of determining fitness except in that a thing does survive.
"Fitness," then, is only another name for "survival."
Darwinism:
That survivors survive. ”

“ Death, the calm, the restful, the never weary; Death, the friend of long suffering, and world weariness and despair; Death, the rescuer, the sometime comforter—has gone away with empty [106] arms and reluctant tread, and—Life, flushed, triumphant, seizes his rescued subject and flings her out into the sea of human lives, perchance to alight upon some tiny green islet or, likelier yet, to buffet about among black waters, or encounter winds and storms, upheld only by a half-wrecked raft or floated by a scarce-supporting spar. ”

“ And if death came on the wings of a storm such as rises suddenly in these regions and piled high the snow over the camp, freezing the inmate, or if it came by slow starvation, the steamer having been lost on that dangerous rocky coast and none other having come in time, how would death seem to one here, already so far removed from men and all desire and lust of the world, here, where already all earthly things had almost ceased to be and one's spirit had merged into the Infinite? ”

“ One of them he could distinguish—scarcely more than a trawler, slender and over-delicate, which to-morrow with its handful of a crew was to set out for the frozen ends of the earth, seeking knowledge, but most of all the old glory of living—danger, suffering, and perhaps death. ”

“ Visioning camp-fires at twilight, sad with a longing forlorn, Feeling my womb o'er-pregnant with the seed of cities unborn. Wild and wide are my borders, stern as death is my sway, And I wait for the men who will win me — and I will not be won in a day ”

“ True, there was a little stir—a little abiding of shepherds in the fields, keeping watch over their flocks by night—a little buzzing in knots of men waiting to be hired before the daybreak—a little stealthy movement as of a burglar or two here and there—an inchoation of life. But the true life of the man was after death and not before it. ”

“ It was like a drowning man—with the strength of two—when rescued and brought safely to land, fainting through sheer weakness. A reprieve from death itself or the blood of his fellow man upon his hands had been met and passed. ”

“ Though I never knew but a score of words of their language, I was now proficient in the art of conversing by signs and the drawing of pictures in the mud, as I was also something of a woodsman and--though but a few months older than when I had been kidnapped--no longer a boy, but the beginnings of a man, who was like to have a hard part to play. Life in the wilderness had made me self-reliant. To the wanderer in savage places peril comes naturally enough, and death itself is all in the work of the day. ”

“ Through man and beast, through grain and grass.
Howe'er we struggle, strive, and cry,
From death there can be no escape,
And no escape from life, alas
Because we cannot die, but pass
From one into another shape:
It is but into life we die. ”

“ Death seems certain, when a convict, clad in red, and with a green cap, runs up for rescue, lets himself down alongside of the swaying sailor, now in the last extremity of weakness, and ready to drop like a winter leaf. ”

“ This juxtaposition of life and death, the violence and quickness with which events rang their changes, somehow stripped away the veils from the riddle of existence, reduced its complex terms to their basic factors. Here in the mountains, desert, plains, they were very simple—to eat well, sleep well, fight well, and die well, even as these thieves, comprised the whole duty of man. ”

“ As the circle in which I stood inclosed by this time was much thinned, and death seemed to be approaching with hasty strides, it was proposed by some of the most resolute to make one vigorous effort, and endeavour to force our way through the savages, the only probable method of preserving our lives that now remained. ”

“ Now what is Survival?
Etymologically, it should mean something qui survit, which outlives its fellows, like the Wandering Jew, encountered suddenly and unexpectedly, now here, now there, in every quarter of the globe from century to century. In practice, we use the word rather to denote a relic, a dead thing cut off from its source, like a lock of hair preserved long after the head it was cut from has mouldered into dust. ”

“ With indescribable bravery a warrior lays down his life, a fireman rescues a child from a burning building, a life-boatman goes through the surf to a sinking ship, and, at that very moment when he proves himself best fitted to live, death comes and he is seen no more. ”

“ Should I pass in safety, I might issue forth into a wilderness, of which I had no knowledge, where I might wander till I perished with famine, or where my footsteps might be noted and pursued and overtaken by these implacable foes. These perils were enormous and imminent; but I likewise considered that I might be at no great distance from the habitations of men, and that my escape might rescue them from the most dreadful calamities. ”

“ For, I fear that his statement may become the basis of a vicious argument that the fact of survival is proof of fitness to survive. It seems to me that the question is. not whether a community lives or dies ; the question is on what plane does it live. There are different modes of survival. But all are not equally honourable. For an individual as well as for a society, there is a gulf between merely living and living worthily. To fight in a battle and to live in glory is one mode. To beat a retreat, to surrender and to live the life of a captive is. also a mode of survival. ”

“ The country of the dead differed but little in their imagination, from the land of the living, and accordingly, looking on death merely as a passage from one region to another nearly similar, they met the summons with indifference. The deceased warrior was placed outside his wigwam in a sitting posture, to show that although life was over, the principle of existence still survived, and in that position he was buried, together with his pipe, manitou, tomahawk, quiver, and bent bow, and a supply of maize and venison for his travels to the paradise of his ancestors. ”

“ I will lead you through the valley of death to victory.' 'Death ends all' cries a despairing world, but the Spirit throughout the ages answers 'Nay, it ends nothing, for thou, O Nazarene, hast conquered death for evermore.'
"Wonders upon wonders will unfold themselves before us, this world cannot hold our spirits prisoners, and other worlds will become as accessible to us then as the suburbs of this town are at present." ”

“ On the very brink of starvation and death--death in the lone wilderness, peopled only with the savage denizens of the forest, who even then were thirsting for our blood--hope, sure and certain hope, had for one brief moment gladdened our hearts with the consoling assurance, that after our many trials, and protracted sufferings, we were again about to find comfort and safety. ”

“ In the early morning hour, as I strolled home deep in thought, I determined to see these men who nightly risk their lives and stalwart limbs for the benefit and preservation of helpless fire-scorched people. Who are these men who go literally through fire and water to assist and save their fellow creatures, strangers to them— unknown, save in that they require help and succour? ”

“ These fearless sons of the wilderness, these sturdy sons of progress, standing there clasping the hands of their partners and with faces glowing with happiness, forgetful of all save the enjoyment of the moment, were ready to go out on the morrow and battle unto the death for the homes and the lives of their loved ones. ”

“ For the first time he sensed the vast difference between the hunter and the hunted, between the man who played the game of life and death alone and the one who played it with the Law and all its might behind him. ”