was not perhaps acquainted with all the
arguments on which my system of the Fixed Period was founded; and
that if he would do me the honour to listen to a few words which I
proposed to speak to the people of Britannula before I left them,
he would have clearer ideas about it than had ever yet entered into
his mind. "Oh, my friends," said he, rising to the altitudes of his
eloquence, "it is fitting for us that we should leave these things in
the hands of the Almighty. It is fitting for us, at any rate, that we
should do so till we have been brought by Him to a state of god-like
knowledge infinitely superior to that which we at present possess."
Here I could perceive that Sir Ferdinando was revelling in the sounds
of his own words, and that he had prepared and learnt by heart the
tones of his voice, and even the motion of his hands. "We all know
that it is not allowed to us to rush into His presence by any deed of
our own. You all remember what the poet says,--

'Or that the Everlasting had not fixed
His canon 'gainst self-slaughter!'

Is not this self-slaughter, this theory in accordance with which a
man shall devote himself to death at a certain period? And if a man
may not slay himself, how shall he then, in the exercise of his poor
human wit, devote a fellow-creature to certain death?" "And he as
well as ever he was in his life," said Tallowax in the gallery.

"My friend does well to remind me. Though Mr Neverbend has named a
Fixed Period for human life, and has perhaps chosen that at which its
energies may usually be found to diminish, who can say that he has
even approached the certainty of that death which the Lord sends
upon us all at His own period? The poor fellow to whom nature has
been unkind, departs from us decrepit and worn out at forty; whereas
another at seventy is still hale and strong in performing the daily
work of his life."

"I am strong enough to do a'most anything for myself, and I was to
be the next to go,--the very next." This in a treble voice came from
that poor fellow Barnes, who had suffered nearly the pangs of death
itself from the Fixed Period.

"Yes, indeed; in answer to such an appeal as that, who shall venture
to say that the Fixed Period shall be carried out with all its
startling audacity? The tenacity of purpose which distinguishes our
friend here is known to us all. The fame of his character in that
respect had reached my ears even among the thick-lipped inhabitants