390 Chapter VI. 



same joys ; everywhere the same struggle for existence. 

 So it ever is. If we penetrate within even the hardest 

 shell, we come upon the pulsations of life, however thick 

 the crust may be. 



" I seem to be sitting here in solitude listening to 

 the music of one of nature's mighty harp-strings, Her 

 grand symphonies peal forth through the endless ages of 

 the universe, now in the tumultuous whirl of busy life, 

 now in the stiffening coldness of death, as in Chopin's 

 Funeral March ; and we we are the minute, invisible 

 vibrations of the strings in this mighty music of the 

 universe, ever changing, yet ever the same. Its notes 

 are worlds ; one vibrates for a longer, another for a 

 shorter period, and all in turn give way to new 

 ones 



" The world that shall be ! .... Again and again this 

 thought comes back to my mind. I gaze far on through 

 the ages 



" Slowly and imperceptibly the heat of the sun 

 declines, and the temperature of the earth sinks by 

 equally slow degrees. Thousands, hundreds of thousands, 

 millions of years pass aw r ay, glacial epochs come and go ; 

 but the heat still grows ever less ; little by little these 

 drifting masses of ice extend far and wide, ever towards 



o 



more southern shores, and no one notices it, but at last 

 all the seas of earth become one unbroken mass of ice. 

 Life has vanished from its surface, and is to be found in 

 the ocean depths alone. 



