From a Dream-book 261 



an end. That which thou callest the end is 

 in truth but the very beginning. The essence 

 of us cannot cease. In the burning of worlds it 

 cannot be consumed. It will shudder in the 

 cores of great stars ; it will quiver in the light 

 of other suns. And once more, in some future 

 cosmos, it will reconquer knowledge but only 

 after evolutions unthinkable for multitude. Even 

 out of the nameless beginnings of form, and 

 thence through every cycle of vanished being, 

 through all successions of exhausted pain, 

 through all the Abyss of the Past, it must 

 climb again." 



The Man uttered no word : the Souls spoke on : 



" For millions of millions of ages must we 

 shiver in tempests of fire: then shall we enter 

 anew into some slime primordial, there to 

 quicken, and again writhe upward through all 

 foul dumb blind shapes. Innumerable the meta 

 morphoses ! immeasurable the agonies ! . . . 

 And the fault is not of any Gods : it is thine ! " 



" Good or evil," muttered the Man, " what 

 signifies either? The best must become as the 

 worst in the grind of the endless change." 



" Nay ! " cried out the Souls ; " for the strong 

 there is a goal, - the goal that thou couldst not 



