CHAPTER XXIX

London Days

THERE is in life only one moment and in eternity only
one. It is so brief that it is represented by the fleeting of a
luminous mote through the thin ray of sunlight—and it is
visible but a fraction of a second. The moments that pre-
ceded it have been lived, are forgotten and are without
value; the moments that have not been lived have no
existence and will have no value except in the moment
that each shall be lived. While you sleep you are dead;
and whether you stay dead an hour or a billion years
the time to you is the same.

Write a novel in which part of the action takes place
in heaven and hell, the next upon the earth. Let a woman
in heaven watch the sweep of the ocean of fire at close
quarters—a person passes by at very long intervals only;
the ocean is so large. It is a solitude—so is heaven. She
has sought for her daughter for a long time—she is watch-
ing hell, now, but not expecting her daughter to be there.
Musing, she hears a shriek, and her daughter sweeps by.
There is an instant of recognition by both—the mother
springs in, perceiving there is no happiness in heaven for
her any longer.

They try to help the situation of all the workingmen
except the hardest worked one, the Prince of Wales. He
does not get the benefit of the eight-hour law and ought
to strike.

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