of wonder, considering what he has left in, that he should have cut
anything out! Besides relentlessly erasing all that is unsuitable on

the score of reverence or decency, I should be inclined to omit also
all that seems too difficult, or not likely to interest young readers.

The resulting book might be slightly fragmentary: but it would be a real
treasure to all British maidens who have any taste for poetry.

If it be needful to apologize to any one for the new departure I have
taken in this story--by introducing, along with what will, I hope,

prove to be acceptablenonsense for children, some of the graver
thoughts of human life--it must be to one who has learned the Art of

keeping such thoughts wholly at a distance in hours of mirth and
careless ease. To him such a mixture will seem, no doubt, ill-judged

and repulsive. And that such an Art exists I do not dispute: with
youth, good health, and sufficient money, it seems quite possible to

lead, for years together, a life of unmixed gaiety--with the exception
of one solemn fact, with which we are liable to be confronted at any

moment, even in the midst of the most brilliant company or the most
sparkling entertainment. A man may fix his own times for admitting

serious thought, for attending public worship, for prayer, for reading
the Bible: all such matters he can defer to that 'convenient season',

which is so apt never to occur at all: but he cannot defer, for one
single moment, the necessity of attending to a message, which may come

before he has finished reading this page,' this night shalt thy soul be
required of thee.'

The ever-present sense of this grim possibility has been, in all ages,*
Note...At the moment, when I had written these words, there

was a knock at the door, and a telegram was brought me,
announcing the sudden death of a dear friend.

an incubus that men have striven to shake off. Few more interesting
subjects of enquiry could be found, by a student of history, than the

various weapons that have been used against this shadowy foe.
Saddest of all must have been the thoughts of those who saw indeed an

existence beyond the grave, but an existence far more terrible than
annihilation--an existence as filmy, impalpable, all but invisible spectres,

drifting about, through endless ages, in a world of shadows, with nothing
to do, nothing to hope for, nothing to love! In the midst of the gay

verses of that genial 'bon vivant' Horace, there stands one dreary word
whose utter sadness goes to one's heart. It is the word 'exilium' in the

well-known passage
Omnes eodem cogimur, omnium

Versatur urna serius ocius
Sors exitura et nos in aeternum

Exilium impositura cymbae.
Yes, to him this present life--spite of all its weariness and all its

sorrow--was the only life worth having: all else was 'exile'! Does it
not seem almost incredible that one, holding such a creed, should ever

have smiled?
And many in this day, I fear, even though believing in an existence

beyond the grave far more real than Horace ever dreamed of, yet regard
it as a sort of 'exile' from all the joys of life, and so adopt

Horace's theory, and say 'let us eat and drink, for to-morrow we die.'
We go to entertainments, such as the theatre--I say 'we', for I also go

to the play, whenever I get a chance of seeing a really good one and
keep at arm's length, if possible, the thought that we may not return

alive. Yet how do you know--dear friend, whose patience has carried
you through this garrulous preface that it may not be your lot, when

mirth is fastest and most furious, to feel the sharp pang, or the
deadly faintness, which heralds the final crisis--to see, with vague

wonder, anxious friends bending over you to hear their troubled
whispers perhaps yourself to shape the question, with trembling lips,

"Is it serious?", and to be told "Yes: the end is near" (and oh, how
different all Life will look when those words are said!)--how do you

know, I say, that all this may not happen to you, this night?
And dare you, knowing this, say to yourself "Well, perhaps it is an

immoral play: perhaps the situations are a little too 'risky', the
dialogue a little too strong, the 'business' a little too suggestive.

I don't say that conscience is quite easy: but the piece is so clever,
I must see it this once! I'll begin a stricter life to-morrow."

To-morrow, and to-morrow, and tomorrow!
"Who sins in hope, who, sinning, says,

'Sorrow for sin God's judgement stays!'
Against God's Spirit he lies; quite stops

Mercy with insult; dares, and drops,
Like a scorch'd fly, that spins in vain

Upon the axis of its pain,
Then takes its doom, to limp and crawl,

Blind and forgot, from fall to fall."
Let me pause for a moment to say that I believe this thought, of the

possibility of death--if calmly realised, and steadily faced would be
one of the best possible tests as to our going to any scene of

amusement being right or wrong. If the thought of sudden death
acquires, for you, a special horror when imagined as happening in a

theatre, then be very sure the theatre is harmful for you, however
harmless it may be for others; and that you are incurring a deadly

peril in going. Be sure the safest rule is that we should not dare to
live in any scene in which we dare not die.

But, once realise what the true object is in life--that it is not
pleasure, not knowledge, not even fame itself, 'that last infirmity of

noble minds'--but that it is the development of character, the rising
to a higher, nobler, purer standard, the building-up of the perfect

Man--and then, so long as we feel that this is going on, and will
(we trust) go on for evermore, death has for us no terror; it is not a

shadow, but a light; not an end, but a beginning!
One other matter may perhaps seem to call for apology--that I should

have treated with such entire want of sympathy the British passion for
'Sport', which no doubt has been in by-gone days, and is still, in some

forms of it, an excellent school for hardihood and for coolness in
moments of danger. But I am not entirely without sympathy for genuine

'Sport': I can heartily admire the courage of the man who, with severe
bodily toil, and at the risk of his life, hunts down some 'man-eating'

tiger: and I can heartily sympathize with him when he exults in the
glorious excitement of the chase and the hand-to-hand struggle with the

monster brought to bay. But I can but look with deep wonder and sorrow
on the hunter who, at his ease and in safety, can find pleasure in what

involves, for some defenceless creature, wild terror and a death of
agony: deeper, if the hunter be one who has pledged himself to preach

to men the Religion of universal Love: deepest of all, if it be one of
those 'tender and delicate' beings, whose very name serves as a symbol

of Love--'thy love to me was wonderful, passing the love of women'--
whose mission here is surely to help and comfort all that are

in pain or sorrow!
'Farewell, farewell! but this I tell

To thee, thou Wedding-Guest!
He prayeth well, who loveth well

Both man and bird and beast.
He prayeth best, who loveth best

All things both great and small;
For the dear God who loveth us,

He made and loveth all.'
SYLVIE AND BRUNO

CHAPTER 1.
LESS BREAD! MORE TAXES!

--and then all the people cheered again, and one man, who was more
excited than the rest, flung his hat high into the air, and shouted

(as well as I could make out) "Who roar for the Sub-Warden?" Everybody
roared, but whether it was for the Sub-Warden, or not, did not clearly

appear: some were shouting "Bread!" and some "Taxes!", but no one
seemed to know what it was they really wanted.

All this I saw from the open window of the Warden's breakfast-saloon,
looking across the shoulder of the Lord Chancellor, who had sprung to