ighted, and they go on, bubbling
with laughter, through years of man's age compared to which the valley
at Balaclava was as safe and peaceful as a village cricket-green on
Sunday. It may fairly be questioned (if we look to the peril only)
whether it was a much more daring feat for Curtius to plunge into the
gulf, than for any old gentleman of ninety to doff his clothes and
clamber into bed.

Indeed, it is a memorable subject for consideration, with what unconcern
and gaiety mankind pricks on along the Valley of the Shadow of Death.
The whole way is one wilderness of snares, and the end of it, for those
who fear the last pinch, is irrevocable ruin. And yet we go spinning
through it all, like a party for the Derby. Perhaps the reader remembers
one of the humorous devices of the deified Caligula: how he encouraged a
vast concourse of holiday-makers on to his bridge over Baiae bay; and
when they were in the height of their enjoyment, turned loose the
Praetorian guards among the company, and had them tossed into the sea.
This is no bad miniature of the dealings of nature with the transitory
race of man. Only, what a chequered picnic we have of it, even while it
lasts! and into what great waters, not to be crossed by any swimmer,
God's pale Praetorian throws us over in the end!

We live the time that a match flickers; we pop the cork of a ginger-beer
bottle, and the earthquake swallows us on the instant. Is it not odd, is
it not incongruous, is it not, in the highest sense of human speech,
incredible, that we should think so highly of the ginger-beer, and
regard so little the devouring earthquake? The love of Life and the fear
of Death are two famous phrases that grow harder to understand the more
we think about them. It is a well-known fact that an immense proportion
of boat accidents would never happen if people held the sheet in their
hands instead of making it fast; and yet, unless it be some martinet of
a professional mariner or some landsman with shattered nerves, every one
of God's creatures makes it fast. A strange instance of man's unconcern
and brazen boldness in the face of death!

We confound ourselves with metaphysical phrases, which we import into
daily talk with noble inappropriateness. We have no idea of what death
is, apart from its circumstances and some of its consequences to others;
and although we have some experience of living, there is not a man on
earth who has flown so high into abstraction as to ha