Page:Carroll - Sylvie and Bruno.djvu/22

xviii one's heart. It is the word ' exilium ' in the well-known passage

Omnes eodem cogimur, omnium Versatur urnâ serius ocius Sors exitura et nos in æternum Exilium impositura cymbæ.

Yes, to him this present life——spite of all its weariness and all its sorrow——was the only life worth having: all else was 'exile'! Does it not seem almost incredible that one, holding such a creed, should ever have smiled?

And many in this day, I fear, even though believing in an existence beyond the grave far more real than Horace ever dreamed of, yet regard it as a sort of 'exile' from all the joys of life, and so adopt Horace's theory, and say 'let us eat and drink, for to-morrow we die.'

We go to entertainments, such as the theatre——I say 'we', for I also go to the play, whenever I get a chance of seeing a really good one——and keep at arm's length, if possible, the thought that we may not return alive. Yet how do you know——dear friend, whose patience has carried you through this garrulous preface——that it may not be your lot, when mirth is fastest and most furious, to feel the sharp pang, or the deadly faintness, which heralds the final crisis——to see, with vague wonder, anxious friends bending over you——to hear their troubled whispers——perhaps yourself to shape the question, with trembling lips, "Is it