The only thing they got was a little hope, which buoyed them
up often when there was but little else that could do so.
Preparation for Death
That there is a life after death is as palpable as that there is a
life before death--see the influence that the dead have over us--but
this life is no more eternal than our present life.
Shakespeare and Homer may live long, but they will die some day, that
is to say, they will become unknown as direct and efficient causes.
Even so God himself dies, for to die is to change and to change is to
die to what has gone before. If the units change the total must do
so also.
As no one can say which egg or seed shall come to visible life and in
its turn leave issue, so no one can say which of the millions of now
visible lives shall enter into the afterlife on death, and which have
but so little life as practically not to count. For most seeds end
as seeds or as food for some alien being, and so with lives, by far
the greater number are sterile, except in so far as they can be
devoured as the food of some stronger life. The Handels and
Shakespeares are the few seeds that grow--and even these die.
And the same uncertainty attaches to posthumous life as to pre-
lethal. As no one can say how long another shall live, so no one can
say how long or how short a time a reputation shall live. The most
unpromising weakly-looking creatures sometimes live to ninety while
strong robust men are carried off in their prime.
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