336 SPECULATIVE FANCIES. 



complain of a father who might be enabled to force him, in a 

 few weeks, into a maturity of endowment, bodily and mental/' 

 He says, " Qui nous oterait nos premieres annees, qui les ferait 

 passer en quelques jours, nous oterait peu. Qu'est ce que c'est 

 que de vivre alors ? " 



So much for the curtailment, at its commencement, of life's 

 unfolding roll ; and the power of its voluntary extension would, 

 we fancy, prove a privilege scarcely more desirable. 



To put a case parallel with the artificial lengthening of insect 

 life, we must, of course, suppose the extra period to be passed 

 in a state of torpor. On these terms, the addition even of 

 centuries to our three-score years and ten may appear only a 

 nominal gain, since, as our French naturalist justly observes, 

 " It is only the conscious train of thought and feeling which 

 constitutes our real existence/' To some people, however, he 

 adds, it might appear exceedingly agreeable to live, even on the 

 condition of torpid intervals, for ten or twelve ages, having in 

 each a few years of active life. 



What changes in the face of nature, art, science, manners, 

 tastes, and fashions would such persons behold ; and how, in 

 all these matters, would each succeeding period enlarge upon 

 the tale of wonder told by its predecessor ! 



Only imagine a courtier, a lord in waiting on King George 

 the Third or his consort Charlotte, awakened from a nap of 

 only fifty years, to fill the like office in the court of our 

 Sovereign Lady. Verily, upon opening his eyes on the strange 

 things around, they would be stretched beyond power of re- 

 closing. Suppose him called on to attend the Queen in one of 

 her frequent " progresses ; " well might such a sleeper 

 awakened rub those distended eyes, and doubt his wakefulness, 

 on beholding his royal mistress step into what appears to his 

 bewildered sight some palace of enchantment, wherein she, and 

 he, her astonished satellite, are forthwith whirled along ; by 

 what ? surely, he believes, by some obedient slave, invisible, of 

 lamp or ring ; for how can he have dreamt, in his dreamless 



