momentary spark in you, like the glance from the
flint and steel ... gone is the red bubbling up of the spark ...
and again a mere slough is lying before us, after its short dream
of life and love, dust upon dust, rottenness upon decay ... the
great-grandfather beside his mouldering great-grandchild ... and
neither knows the other, neither has ever heard of the other.

The plants around you prick up their ears at you in a thousand
forms; the flowers smile roguishly and sadly, in the midst of the
masquerade; and dream mingles with dream, when the lover plucks
the rose, and blushing himself holds out the blushing blossom to
his blushing maiden.

* * * * *

The beating of the pulse is not only a sign of life, it is life
itself. No feeling, no thought, no sight or hearing, no taste or
sensation flows along with a rushing stream, but all comes
skipping, wave upon wave, drop upon drop, and this is its being.
One thought is cast out by another; our feelings are only felt as
they shift between life and death: the kiss only thrills on our
lips when a chill void has already spread over them; our delight
in a picture, in music, merely gushes through us; one moment it
entrances us, the next it has vanisht. Thus the sea breathes in
its ebb and flow, time in its days and nights, its winters and
summers. If I do not forget myself this moment, I cannot recollect
myself the next.--And death....

Is this revulsion of the pulse, this alteration of strain, this
change of tune a prelude, a transition to a new piece of music?
Every living creature exists to be devoured by another; man alone
has apparently eluded these barrack-regulations, this military
duty, and fattens himself up for the earth, that shattered chaos
of stones and mould.

In love, in misfortune, in joy, in despondency, in labour and
rest, death has always been my uppermost, I might rather say my
only thought. Suicide in me would have been of all human actions
the most natural. I have never felt that any indescribable fear,
any overpowering shudder draws us back, and flings the knife from
our hands. If poor naked Joy, that is so meanly clad, she is
ashamed to walk about the earth, were once to enter our doors,
then the stab of the bright dagger would only be the last
glittering pinnacle of o