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Could it be so might it please God, he would desire once more to see the sun, once more to look abroad on the scene around him on the great day of liberty. Heaven, in its mercy, fulfilled that prayer. He saw that sun, he enjoyed its sacred light he thanked God for this mercy, and bowed his aged head to the grave. "Felix, non vitae tantum claritate, sid etiam opportunitate mortis."
Dee, at the same time, pretended to be in possession of the elixir vitae, which he stated he had found among the ruins of Glastonbury Abbey, in Somersetshire. People flocked from far and near to his house at Mortlake to have their nativities cast, in preference to visiting astrologers of less renown. They also longed to see a man who, according to his own account, would never die.
An article of great value by Eugene Deland, appeared in the Chatauquan of September, on the characteristics of Porto Rico, and we present an extract, showing its admirable distinction of accurate information well set forth: "The mountain slopes are covered with valuable timbers, cabinet and dye-woods, including mahogany, walnut, lignum vitae, ebony, and logwood, and various medicinal plants.
Set these in a little valley, framed by mountains whose rocks gleam out blue and purple colours such as pre-Raphaelites only dare attempt, shining out hard and weird-like amongst the clumps of castor-oil plants, oistus, arbor vitae and many other evergreens, whose names, alas! I know not; the cistus is brown now, the rest all deep or brilliant green.
Because her old surgeon friend, Sir Joshua Oldfield, now and then took her out to dinner, I considered she was leading a cheerful if not a merry life. I smiled indulgently at Lola's devotion to the cats and congratulated her on having found another means whereby to beguile the tedium vitae which is the arch-enemy of content. "I wish I could find such a means myself," said I.
He could not have made it all by the sale of his elixir vitae in Germany; though, no doubt, some portion of it was derived from that source. Voltaire positively says, he was in the pay of foreign governments; and in his letter to the King of Prussia, dated the 5th of April 1758, says, that he was initiated in all the secrets of Choiseul, Kaunitz, and Pitt.
The question, "What is life?" does not lie within the province of human reason, the science of logic, or the intuitions of consciousness, to determine. It furnishes no objective datum on which to predicate attributes that are either congruent or diverse. It can only be defined as the coordination of the vis vitae in nature, which is an undisguised form of reasoning in a circle.
To men of this stamp, Grotius applies the severe character NULLUM VITAE GENUS ET IMPROBIUS, QUAM EORUM, QUI SINE CAUSAE RESPECTU MERCEDE CONDUCTI, MILITANT. To these mercenary soldiers, as well as to the needy gentry with whom they were mixed in command, and who easily imbibed the same opinions, the success of the late short invasion of England in 1641 was a sufficient reason for renewing so profitable an experiment.
I have ONE o' them, I tell you; but, be my sowl, I'll not undertake A PAIR o' them. The very name's enough for me." They then separated. The tailor's vis vitae must have been powerful or he would have died. In two years more his friends could not distinguish him from his own shadow, a circumstance which was of great inconvenience to him.
The better to effectuate my design, I procured a Tartar's sheep-skin robe, a bonnet, with bow and arrows, and every one of us got the like habits, the first night we spent in mixing combustible matter with aqua vitae, gunpowder, &c. having a good quantity of tar in a little pot: next night we came up to the idol about eleven o'clock, the moon being up.
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