Why do you seek, you who talk of the impossible, to girdle the great world in the span of your two hands and to weigh the secrets of the Universe in the balance of your petty mind and, of that which you cannot understand, to say that it is not?
Life you admit because you see it all about you.

But that it should endure for two thousand years, which after all is but a second's beat in the story of the earth, that to you is 'impossible,' although in truth the buried seed or the sealed-up toad can live as long.

Doubtless, also, you have some faith which promises you this same boon to all eternity, after the little change called Death.
"Nay, Allan, it is possible enough, like to many other things of which you do not dream to-day that will be common to the eyes of those who follow after you.

Mayhap you think it impossible that I should speak with and learn of you from yonder old black wizard who dwells in the country whence you came.

And yet whenever I will I do so in the night because he is in tune with me, and what I do shall be done by all men in the years unborn.