An Odd Coincidence
Dec. 16th, 2019 04:37 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
stoutfellowI'm currently reading _No Name_, a novel by the 19th century author Wilkie Collins (better known for _The Moonstone_ and _The Woman in White_). One of the characters has come to the bedside of a gravely ill friend, and is trying to comfort her, reassuring her that he is here to protect and revive her. In his boastful speech to that effect, he cries, "Dum vivimus, vivamus". (He immediately apologies for his pedantry.)
What's odd is that I've encountered that saying ("While we live, let us live!") exactly once before, in Robert Heinlein's rather odd fantasy/science fiction novel _Glory Road_. There, the hero used it to propose to his lady-love. (Also oddly, this was in midbook; much happened afterward, to the detriment of their marriage.)
Collins and Heinlein are not two authors I would think of in the same breath, but there you are.
What's odd is that I've encountered that saying ("While we live, let us live!") exactly once before, in Robert Heinlein's rather odd fantasy/science fiction novel _Glory Road_. There, the hero used it to propose to his lady-love. (Also oddly, this was in midbook; much happened afterward, to the detriment of their marriage.)
Collins and Heinlein are not two authors I would think of in the same breath, but there you are.
