Non-Fiction > Books > London, 1887 - Virginibus Puerisque, and other papers

El Dorado 1 7 5
"What!" cried the young fellow, in conster-
nation, " is there no more Carlyle ? Am I
left to the daily papers ?" A more celebrated
instance is that of Alexander, who wept
bitterly because he had no more worlds to
subdue. And when Gibbon had finished the
Decline and Fall, he had only a few moments
of joy ; and it was with a " sober melancholy"
that he parted from his labours.
Happily we all shoot at the moon with
ineffectual arrows ; our hopes are set on
inaccessible El Dorado ; we come to an end
of nothing here below. Interests are only
plucked up to sow themselves again, like
mustard. You would think, when the child
was born, there would be an end to trouble ;
and yet it is only the beginning of fresh
anxieties ; and when you have seen it through
its teething and its education, and at last its
marriage, alas ! it is only to have new fears,
new quivering sensibilities, with every day ;
and the health of your children's children
grows as touching a concern as that of your
own. Again, when you have married your