At will, we build our futurities; tier above tier, all galleries full of laureates: resounding with everlasting oratorios! Pater-nosters forever, or eternal Misereres! forgetting that in Mardi, our breviaries oft fall from our hands.

But divans there are, some say, whereon we shall recline, basking in effulgent suns, knowing neither Orient nor Occident.

Is it so?
Fellow men! our mortal lives have an end; but that end is no goal: no place of repose.
Whatever it may be, it will prove but as the beginning of another race.

We will hope, joy, weep, as before; though our tears may be such as the spice-trees shed.

Supine we can only be, annihilated.
"'The thick film is breaking; the ages have long been circling.
Fellow-men! if we live hereafter, it will not be in lyrics; nor shall we yawn, and our shadows lengthen, while the eternal cycles are revolving.