noon
Man and fiend had alike failed a mind , not ignoble , not skill-less , not abjectly craven ; alike failed a heart not feeble and selfish , not dead to the hero 's devotion , willing to shed every drop of its blood for a something more dear than an animal 's life for itself ! What remained -- what remained for man 's hope ? -- man 's mind and man 's heart thus exhausting their all with no other result but despair ! What remained but the mystery of mysteries , so clear to the sunrise of childhood , the sunset of age , only dimmed by the clouds which collect round the noon of our manhood ? Where yet was Hope found ? In the soul ; in its every-day impulse to supplicate comfort and light , from the Giver of soul , wherever the heart is afflicted , the mind is obscured . Then the words of Ayesha rushed over me : `` What mourner can be consoled , if the dead die forever ? ''