"While we live let us live." How is this agreeable maxim to be carried out, if we are always looking forward into the Dark? There is little wisdom in the desperate philosophy which teaches men "to eat and drink for to-morrow they die;" but surely there is reason in taking, while we may, such moderate refreshment as may brace us for the perils and labours that the dawning may bring. Do you suppose that Teucer's galleys clove less swiftly through the Egean because their crews had feasted high in Salamis on the eve of exile? I fancy those grim old sea-dogs at their last home revels--cutting deeper into the mighty chines, and dipping their grizzled beards into the black wine with a keener zest, while the cheery voice, clear and sonorous as if its owner had never known defeat or disaster, rings out ----O fortes pejoraque passi Mecum sæpe viri, nunc vino pellite curas: Cras ingens iterabimus æquor. The torches flare and swirl in the wind that is rising gustily; there is a dull sullen booming outside familiar to the wanderers, for they have heard it ere this when every sinew was strained to keep them clear of breakers on their lee; they were met by dark lowering faces when they sailed in through the harbor-mouth; the populace--taught to call them traitors by the savage old childless king--is now raving for their blood. What matters it all? They catch their leader's eye as he stands up in the midst, erect and dauntless, with the great gold crater in his gripe, and they laugh out loud in defiance; remembering storms they have weathered and foes they have tamed, and perils compared to which these are but child's play. Would their prospects have looked better if they had sat down, with folded hands and covered heads, to complain of mortals and immortals, and miserably to make their moan? Truly I think not. Now--when they cast off their moorings to-morrow--in despite of envious Pallas, we need not fear to wish the exiles "good speed." CHAPTER VI. GOLDEN DREAMS. First Love! Do not they look and sound just as fresh as ever--those two pretty words? And yet, they have been harder worked than the tritest of school-copies, by successive generations of romancists in prose and rhyme, from Anacreon and Sappho down to that more modern and practical enthusiast, who, in a simile that must come home to every maid and matron in Belgravia (about five P.M. daily), exclaims, "A first love is like the first cup of tea--all others like the second." The heresy was worse than Antinomian that would cavil at feelings allowed by common consent to be divinely delicious. Take warning by Tantalus; beware of misbehaviour at the celestial table; when nectar and ambrosia are set before you, accept them gratefully, without discussing too curiously their flavour. Perhaps it is best so; perhaps the children's plan is wisest--"Open your mouth and shut your eyes."