Marcus Antoninus, in his “Meditations,” harps on the note of shadow-hunting or shadow-hunted shadows. You will soon be reduced to ashes and a skeleton, he keeps telling himself; and even if you leave a name,—what is a name? what is in a name? _Vox et præterea nihil._ The shadows you, a shade, pursue, are miserably shadowy. The prizes of life are, he says, so paltry, that to scuffle for them is ridiculous, and puts him in mind of a set of puppies snarling for a bone, or of the contests of children for a toy. Wherever he looks, the wide world over, and in whatever age of its history, he sees abundance of people very busy, and big with their projects, who presently drop off, and moulder to dust and ashes. The freshest laurels wither apace, and the echoes of Fame are soon silenced. The “insect youth” that people the air and make it murmurous with busy life,—is not their close resemblance to the children of men one of poetry’s common-places? “To Contemplation’s sober eye, Such is the race of man; And they that creep, and they that fly, Shall end where they began. “Alike the busy and the gay, But flutter through life’s little day, In fortune’s varying colours drest; Brushed by the hand of rough Mischance, Or chilled by Age, their airy dance They leave, in dust to rest.” Having asked to be told her fortune by the Wise Wight of Mucklestane Moor, Miss Ildeston, in Scott’s story, is told by the cynical recluse, that it is a simple one; an endless chase through life after follies not worth catching, and when caught, successively thrown away—a chase, pursued from the days of tottering infancy to those of old age upon his crutches. “Toys and merry-making in childhood—love and its absurdities in youth—spadille and basto in age, shall succeed each other as objects of pursuit: flowers and butterflies in spring,—butterflies and thistledown in summer,—withered leaves in autumn and winter—all pursued, all caught, all flung aside.” _Que vont elles faire de si grand matin_, Cleopas asks his demon-guide, concerning _ces personnes_ whose early rising and eager bustle have caught and fixed his attention. “Ce que vous souhaitez de savoir, reprit le Démon, est une chose digne d’être observée. Vous allez voir un tableau des soins, des mouvements, des peines que les pauvres mortels se donnent pendant cette vie, pour remplir, le plus agréablement qu’il leur est possible, ce petit éspace qui est entre leur naissance et leur mort.” _Telle est la vie_, as most of us live it. “Dream after dream ensues, And still they dream that they shall still succeed, And still are disappointed,” writes William Cowper. Not at all in the same measure or manner, but pretty much to the same effect, writes the picturesque poet of Bells and Pomegranates: