Oh, would that I could lead you to place your hopes on eternity, best of women and most true-hearted mother! Eternity, which not the wisest brain can conceive of!--I tell you, lady, for you are a philosopher--that is the hardest and therefore the grandest idea for human thought to compass.

Fix your eye on that, and in its infinite realm, which must be your future home, you will meet her again whom you have lost--not her image returned to you, but herself." "Cease," interrupted the matron, with impatient sharpness.

"I know what you are aiming at.

But to conceive of eternity is the prerogative of the immortals; our intellect is wrecked in the attempt.

Our wings melt like those of Ikarus, and we fall into the ocean--the ocean of madness, to which I have often been near enough.