Patriotism! what is it but the mother instinct of a
people?
Take it that the decree has gone forth from Heaven: There shall be
no more generations, with this life the world shall die. Think you
we should move another hand? The ships would rot in the harbours,
the grain would rot in the ground. Should we paint pictures, write
books, make music? hemmed in by that onward creeping sea of silence.
Think you with what eyes husband and wife would look on one another.
Think you of the wooing--the spring of Love dried up; love only a
pool of stagnant water.
How little we seem to realize this foundation of our life. Herein,
if nowhere else, lies our eternity. This Ego shall never die--
unless the human race from beginning to end be but a passing jest of
the Gods, to be swept aside when wearied of, leaving room for new
experiments. These features of mine--we will not discuss their
aesthetic value--shall never disappear; modified, varied, but in
essential the same, they shall continue in ever increasing circles
to the end of Time. This temperament of mine--this good and evil
that is in me, it shall grow with every age, spreading ever wider,
combining, amalgamating. I go into my children and my children's
children, I am eternal.
Pages:
224
225
226
227
228
229
230
231
232
233
234
235
236
237
238
239
240
241
242
243
244
245
246
247
248