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'He said, "I believe in Eternal Life," As he threw his life away What need to hoard? He could well afford To squander his mortal day. With Eternity his, what need to care? A sort of immortal millionaire. LECTOR. I am glad to be reminded, Scriptor, that you are a poet, for the line of your argument had almost made me forget it. One expects other views from a poet.
LECTOR. But does not old age spend most of its thought in dwelling fondly on its lost youth, hanging like a remote sunrise in its imagination? Is it not its one yearning desire just to live certain hours of its youth over again? and would the old man not give all he possesses for the certainty of being born young again into eternity? SCRIPTOR. He would give everything but the certainty of rest.
LECTOR. All the more reason, Scriptor, that you should desire a hereafter. You sometimes talk of the work you would do if you were a robust Philistine such as I. Would it not be worth while to live again, if only to make sure of that magnum opus just to realise those dreams that you say are daily escaping you? SCRIPTOR. Ah! so speaks the energetic man, eager to take the world on his shoulders.
In spite of you, it saddens all your words. Tell me, have you ever known what it is actually to lose any one who is dear to you? Have you looked on death face to face? SCRIPTOR. Yes, Lector, I have but once. It is now about five years ago, but the impression of it haunts me to this hour. Perhaps the memory is all the keener because it was my one experience.
SCRIPTOR. When, my dear Lector, shall we get rid of the silly idea that the poet should give us only the ornamental view of life, and rock us to sleep, like babies, with pretty lullabies? Is it not possible to make facts sing as well as fancies?
Ab ea must be supplied after descriptae from a qua above. ACTUM: the common comparison of life with a drama is also found in 64, 70, 85. Hor. Ep. 2, 2, 126 praetulerim scriptor delirus inersque videri, and Cic. POETA: nature is here the dramatist, the drama is life, the actors are human beings.
LECTOR. But tell me, Scriptor, of this sad experience, which even now it moves you to name; or is the memory too sad to recall? SCRIPTOR. Sad enough, Lector, but beautiful for all that, beautiful as winter. It was winter when she of whom I am thinking died a winter that seemed to make death itself whiter and colder on her marble forehead.
'Malo scriptor delirus, inersque videri, Dum mea delectent mala me vel denique fallunt, Quam sapere. When I came back I found Mardocheus at supper with his numerous family, composed of eleven or twelve individuals, and including his mother an old woman of ninety, who looked very well.
LECTOR. But do you really mean, Scriptor, that you have no desire for the life after death? SCRIPTOR. I never said quite that, Lector, though perhaps I might almost have gone so far. What I did say was that we have been accustomed to exaggerate its importance to us here and now, that it really matters less to us than we imagine. LECTOR. I see. But you must speak for yourself, Scriptor.
Faith in the life here! Let our poets sing us that. And such as would deny it I would hang them as enemies of society. LECTOR. But, at all events, to keep to our point you at least hope for immortality. If Edison, say, were suddenly to discover it for us as a scientific certainty, you would welcome the news? SCRIPTOR. Well, yes and no! Have you seen the 'penny' phonographs in the Strand?
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