fragments, which would have no relation to one another. And so it would
not be one life, but many unconnected ones. Unless he could look into the
same eyes, through the mornings of future time, opening and blessing him
with the fresh gleam of love and joy; unless the same sweet voice could
melt his thoughts together; unless some sympathy of a life side by side
with his could knit them into one; looking back upon the same things,
looking forward to the same; the long, thin thread of an individual life,
stretching onward and onward, would cease to be visible, cease to be felt,
cease, by and by, to have any real bigness in proportion to its length,
and so be virtually non-existent, except in the mere inconsiderable Now.
If a group of chosen friends, chosen out of all the world for their
adaptedness, could go on in endless life together, keeping themselves
mutually warm on the high, desolate way, then none of them need ever sigh
to be comforted in the pitiable snugness of the grave. If one especial
soul might be his companion, then how complete the fence of mutual arms,
the warmth of close-pressing breast to breast! Might there be one! O Sibyl
Dacy!

Perhaps it could not be. Who but himself could undergo that great trial,
and hardship, and self-denial, and firm purpose, never wavering, never
sinking for a moment, keeping his grasp on life like one who holds up by
main force a sinking and drowning friend?--how could a woman do it! He
must then give up the thought. There was a choice,--friendship, and the
love of woman,--the long life of immortality. There was something heroic
and ennobling in choosing the latter. And so he walked with the mysterious
girl on the hill-top, and sat down beside her on the grave, which still
ceased not to redden, portentously beautiful, with that unnatural
flower,--and they talked together; and Septimius looked on her weird
beauty, and often said to himself, "This, too, will pass away; she is not
capable of what I am; she is a woman. It must be a manly and courageous