THE CARP AND THE STICKLEBACK 



and destined to perish when they have lived. This 

 personal life, which today supports them, is a fragment 

 of the general life, of activity expended in the course of 

 time. It is the greater for this superiority ; it is its repre- 

 sentative for a moment before it passes it on to others. 

 Real, complete life is a perpetual becoming, in which 

 each, according to his place in the scheme of things, has 

 his part. 



Old things, which have seen the waves of hastening 

 generations pass by them, have their lesson for us. 

 They remind us that what we see before us now is not 

 all there is to see, that it succeeds many other sights and 

 will itself be replaced by others again. They make 

 clear to us what time really is in living Nature, not a 

 fugitive moment, but a vast duration, and what a part it 

 plays in the animation of life: the main conductor, the 

 director of events. 



The old pond counsels us to meditation and recol- 

 lection. It appeases and consoles us ; it assumes the role 

 of a benevolent personality. Its silence, its repose, its 

 shade, cut us off from the bustle of the outer world, and 

 allow thought to have a chance, to remember better, to 

 appreciate values more truly. Left always to itself, it is 

 still what it was when I first halted on its banks. It 

 teaches continuity and perenniality. Before me, it is 

 the same calm, green water, traversed by the swift 

 journeyings of little fishes, the same foliage, the same 

 soft noises of insects and birds. Nothing seems to 

 have moved. 



The frame has remained: the view has not changed. 

 But the creatures which occupy the stage have 

 changed. Though they are not the same as those of 

 other days, they are like them; they replace them 

 exactly, for generation has succeeded to generation. 

 The play produced by life has remained what it was. 

 The actors have disappeared one after another, but 

 before they left the stage they handed down from parents 

 to descendants, from generation to generation, the 



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