o believe that this
catastrophe is so near at hand?

_Timotheus._ We all believe it; or rather, we all are certain of it.

_Lucian._ How so? Have you observed any fracture in the disk of the
sun? Are any of the stars loosened in their orbits? Has the beautiful
light of Venus ceased to pant in the heavens, or has the belt of Orion
lost its gems?

_Timotheus._ Oh, for shame!

_Lucian._ Rather should I be ashamed of indifference on so important
an occasion.

_Timotheus._ We know the fact by surer signs.

_Lucian._ These, if you could vouch for them, would be sure enough for
me. The least of them would make me sweat as profusely as if I stood
up to the neck in the hot preparation of a mummy. Surely no wise or
benevolent philosopher could ever have uttered what he knew or
believed might be distorted into any such interpretation. For if men
are persuaded that they and their works are so soon about to perish,
what provident care are they likely to take in the education and
welfare of their families? What sciences will they improve, what
learning will they cultivate, what monuments of past ages will they be
studious to preserve, who are certain that there can be no future
ones? Poetry will be censured as rank profaneness, eloquence will be
converted into howls and execrations, statuary will exhibit only
Midases and Ixions, and all the colours of painting will be mixed
together to produce one grand conflagration: _flammantia moenia
mundi_.

_Timotheus._ Do not quote an atheist; especially in Latin. I hate the
language; the Romans are beginning to differ from us already.

_Lucian._ Ah! you will soon split into smaller fractions. But pardon
me my unusual fault of quoting. Before I let fall a quotation I must
be taken by surprise. I seldom do it in conversation, seldomer in
composition; for it mars the beauty and unity of style, especially
when it invades it from a foreign tongue. A quoter is either
ostentatious of his acquirements or doubtful of his cause. And
moreover, he never walks gracefully who leans upon the shoulder of
another, however gracefully that other may walk. Herodotus, Plato,
Aristoteles, Demosthenes, are no quoters. Thucydides, twice or thrice,
inserts a few sentences of Pericles: but Thucydides is an emanation of
Pericles, somewhat less clear indeed, being lower, although at no
great distance from that purest and most pellucid source. The best of
the Romans, I agree with you, are remote from such origi