inked with our first impressions. There near
this fireside the grandfather danced us on his knee, and told us
blood-curdling stories; here the kind grandmother came to see if we were
comfortably tucked in, and not likely to fall out of the big bed; in
this little wood, along these alleys that seemed endless, we spread our
nets for birds; in this stream we fished for crayfish; there on the path
we played at soldiers with our elders, who were always captains; on
these slopes we found rare stones and fossils, and mysterious
petrifactions; on this hill we admired the fine sunsets, the appearance
of the stars, the form of the constellations. There we began to live, to
think, to love, to form attachments, to dream, to question every
problem, to breathe intellectually and physically. And now, where is
this beloved grandfather? the good grandmother? where are all whom we
knew in infancy? where are our dreams of childhood? Winged thoughts
still seem to flutter in the air, and that is all. People, caresses,
voices, all have gone and vanished. The cemetery has closed over them
all. There is a silent void. Were all those fine and sunny hours an
illusion? Was it only to weep one day over this negation that our
childish hearts were so tenderly attached to these fleeting shadows? Is
there nothing, down the long length of human history, but eternal
delusion?

It is here, above all, that we find ourselves in presence of the
greatest problems. Life is the goal, it is Life that produces the
conditions of Thought. Without Thought, where would be the Universe?

We feel that without life and thought, the Universe would be an empty
theater, and Astronomy itself, sublime science, a vain research. We feel
that this is the truth, veiled as yet to actual science, and that human
races kindred with our own exist there in the immensities of space. Yes,
we _feel_ that this is truth.

But we would fain go a little further in our knowledge of the universe,
and penetrate in some measure the secret of our destinies. We would know
if these distant and unknown Humanities are not attached to us by
mysterious cords, if our life, which will assuredly be extinguished at
some definite moment here below, will not be prolonged into the regions
of Eternity.

A moment ago we said that nothing is left of the body. Millions of
organisms have lived, there are no remains of them. Air, water, smoke,
dust. _Memento, homo, quia pulvis es et in pulverem revertebis._
R