from joy, which inspires all the best art. This negation of hope has
"close-lipped Patience for its only friend."

In vain does Lucretius paint pictures of life and Nature so large, so
glowing, so majestic that they remind us of nothing but the "Fete
Champetre" of Giorgione, in the Louvre. All that life is a thing we must
leave soon, and forever, and must be hopelessly lapped in an eternity of
blind silence. "I shall let men see the certain end of all," he cries;
"then will they resist religion, and the threats of priests and
prophets." But this "certain end" is exactly what mortals do not desire
to see. To this sleep they prefer even _tenebras Orci, vastasque
lacunas_.

They will not be deprived of gods, "the friends of man, merciful gods,
compassionate." They will not turn from even a faint hope in those to
the Lucretian deities in their endless and indifferent repose and divine
"delight in immortal and peaceful life, far, far away from us and
ours--life painless and fearless, needing nothing we can give, replete
with its own wealth, unmoved by prayer and promise, untouched by anger."

Do you remember that hymn, as one may call it, of Lucretius to Death, to
Death which does not harm us. "For as we knew no hurt of old, in ages
when the Carthaginian thronged against us in war, and the world was
shaken with the shock of fight, and dubious hung the empire over all
things mortal by sea and land, even so careless, so unmoved, shall we
remain, in days when we shall no more exist, when the bond of body and
soul that makes our life is broken. Then naught shall move us, nor wake
a single sense, not though earth with sea be mingled, and sea with sky."
There is no hell, he cries, or, like Omar, he says, "Hell is the vision
of a soul on fire."