Page:Carroll - Sylvie and Bruno Concluded.djvu/295

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XVI]
BEYOND THESE VOICES.
257

"I see no help for that——though I shall be sorry to give up my favorite studies. Still, medicine, disease, pain, sorrow, sin——I fear they're all linked together. Banish sin, and you banish them all!"

"Military science is a yet stronger instance," said the Earl. "Without sin, war would surely be impossible. Still any mind, that has had in this life any keen interest, not in itself sinful, will surely find itself some congenial line of work hereafter. Wellington may have no more battles to fight——and yet——

'We doubt not that, for one so true,
There must be other, nobler work to do,
Than when he fought at Waterloo,
And Victor he must ever be!'"

He lingered over the beautiful words, as if he loved them: and his voice, like distant music, died away into silence.

After a minute or two he began again. "If I'm not wearying you, I would like to tell you an idea of the future Life which has haunted me for years, like a sort of waking nightmare——I ca'n't reason myself out of it."


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