The ever-present sense of this grim possibility has been, in all ages,[1] an incubus that men have striven to shake off. Few more interesting subjects of enquiry could be found, by a student of history, than the various weapons that have been used against this shadowy foe. Saddest of all must have been the thoughts of those who saw indeed an _existence_ beyond the grave, but an existence far more terrible than annihilation—an existence as filmy, impalpable, all but invisible spectres, drifting about, through endless ages, in a world of shadows, with nothing to do, nothing to hope for, nothing to love! In the midst of the gay verses of that genial ‘bon vivant’ Horace, there stands one dreary word whose utter sadness goes to 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 serious?”, and to be told “Yes: the end is near” (and oh, how different all Life will look when those words are said!)—how do you know, I say, that all this may not happen to _you_, this night?