The next two books are but broken fragments, treating of morals and manners. In the sixth we come to that dream of Scipio which has become so famous in the world of literature that I do not know whether I can do better than translate it, and add it on as an appendix to the end of my volume. It is in itself so beautiful in parts that I think that all readers will thank me. (See appendix to this chapter). At the same time it has to be admitted that it is in parts fantastic, and might almost be called childish, were it not that we remember, when reading it, at what distance of time it was written, and with what difficulty Cicero strove to master subjects which science has made familiar to us. The music of the spheres must have been heard in his imagination before he could have told us of it, as he has done in language which seems to be poetic now as it was then--and because poetic, therefore not absurd. The length of the year's period is an extravagance. You may call your space of time by what name you will; it is long or short in proportion to man's life. He tells us that we may not hope that our fame shall be heard of on the other side of the Ganges, or that our voices shall come down through many years. I myself read this dream of Scipio in a volume found in Australia, and read it two thousand years after it was written. He could judge of this world's future only by the past. But when he tells us of the soul's immortality, and of the heaven to be won by a life of virtue, of the duty upon us to remain here where God has placed us, and of the insufficiency of fame to fill the cravings of the human heart, then we have to own that we have come very near to that divine teaching which he was not permitted to hear.