e at all. You see, everything would have gone to
bits if I had let myself realise the contrary, and I think I should have
gone crazy into the bargain."

There has been a good deal of _going to bits_ and of craziness of sorts
owing to the centuries and the universe not always having been as wise
as this lady. And--with all deference to higher illuminations--I am
tempted to ask myself whether all creeds, which have insisted on life's
fleetingness and vanity, have not played considerable havoc with the
fruitfulness, let alone the pleasantness, of existence. Certainly the
holy persons who awaited the end of the world in caves, and on platforms
fastened to columns, had not well-furbished knives and forks, nor
carefully folded linen, nor, as a rule, nicely behaved nice little boys
and girls, waiting with eager patience for a second helping of pudding.
There is a distressing sneer at soap ("scented soap" it is always
called), even in the great Tolstoi's writings, ever since he has allowed
himself to be hag-ridden by the thought of death. And one speculates
whether the care true saints have bestowed upon their souls, if not
their bodies, the swept and garnished character of the best monasticism,
has not been due to the fact that all this tidiness was in preparation
for an eternity of beatitude?

Fortunately for the world, the case of my dear goddaughter is an
extreme one; and although our existence is quite as full of uprootings
as hers, they come in such a stealthy or such a tragic manner as to
beget no expectation of recurrence. Moreover, the very essence of life
is to make us believe in itself; we fashion the future out of our
feelings of the present, and go on living as if we should live for
ever, simply because, by the nature of things, we have no experience
of ceasing to live. Life is for ever murmuring to us the secret of its
unendingness; and it is to our honour, and for our happiness, that we,
poor flashes of a second, identify ourselves with the great unceasing,
steady light which we and millions of myriads besides go to make up.
Are we much surer of being alive to-morrow than of being dead in fifty
years? "Is there any moment which can certify to its successor?" That
is the answer to La Fontaine's octogenarian, planting his trees,
despite the gibes of the little beardless boys whom, as is inevitable
in such cases, he survived.

Defendez-vous au sage
De se donner des soins pour le plaisir d'aut