handiwork; and this could only be done by entire accordance and co-effort
with Nature. Therefore Nature is not changed, and death remains as one of
her steps, just as heretofore. Therefore, when we have exhausted the
world, whether by going through its apparently vast variety, or by
satisfying ourselves that it is all a repetition of one thing, we will
call death as the friend to introduce us to something new."

[_He would write a poem, or other great work, inappreciable at first, and
live to see it famous,--himself among his own posterity_.]

"Oh, insatiable love of life!" exclaimed Sibyl, looking at him with strange
pity. "Canst thou not conceive that mortal brain and heart might at length
be content to sleep?"

"Never, Sibyl!" replied Septimius, with horror. "My spirit delights in the
thought of an infinite eternity. Does not thine?"

"One little interval--a few centuries only--of dreamless sleep," said
Sibyl, pleadingly. "Cannot you allow me that?"

"I fear," said Septimius, "our identity would change in that repose; it
would be a Lethe between the two parts of our being, and with such
disconnection a continued life would be equivalent to a new one, and
therefore valueless."

In such talk, snatching in the fog at the fragments of philosophy, they
continued fitfully; Septimius calming down his enthusiasm thus, which
otherwise might have burst forth in madness, affrighting the quiet little
village with the marvellous things about which they mused. Septimius could
not quite satisfy himself whether Sibyl Dacy shared in his belief of the