It is the word 'exilium' in the
well-known passage
Omnes eodem cogimur, omnium
Versatur urna serius ocius
Sors exitura et nos in aeternum
Exilium impositura cymbae.
Yes, to him this present life--spite of all its weariness and all its
sorrow--was the only life worth having: all else was 'exile'! Does it
not seem almost incredible that one, holding such a creed, should ever
have smiled?
And many in this day, I fear, even though believing in an existence
beyond the grave far more real than Horace ever dreamed of, yet regard
it as a sort of 'exile' from all the joys of life, and so adopt
Horace's theory, and say 'let us eat and drink, for to-morrow we die.'
We go to entertainments, such as the theatre--I say 'we', for I also go
to the play, whenever I get a chance of seeing a really good one and
keep at arm's length, if possible, the thought that we may not return
alive. Yet how do you know--dear friend, whose patience has carried
you through this garrulous preface that it may not be your lot, when
mirth is fastest and most furious, to feel the sharp pang, or the
deadly faintness, which heralds the final crisis--to see, with vague
wonder, anxious friends bending over you to hear their troubled
whispers perhaps yourself to shape the question, with trembling lips,
"Is it serious?", and to be told "Yes: the end is near" (and oh, how
different all Life will look when those words are said!)--how do you
know, I say, that all this may not happen to you, this night?
And dare you, knowing this, say to yourself "Well, perhaps it is an
immoral play: perhaps the situations are a little too 'risky', the
dialogue a little too strong, the 'business' a little too suggestive.
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