ONE:37 The bill ran as follows:The noble spirit of Marcus Aurelius was, indeed, proof against such temptations: and he had far more to dread than to hope from the unlightened voice of public opinion; but to him also, standing between two eternities, Nature presented herself chiefly under the aspect of an overwhelming and absorbing Power. Pleasure is not so much dangerous as worthless, weak, and evanescent. Selfishness, pride, anger, and discontent will soon be swept into abysmal gulfs of oblivion by the roaring cataract of change. Universal history is one long monotonous procession of phantasms passing over the scene into death and utter night. In one short life we may see all that ever was, or is, or is to be; the same pageant has already been and shall be repeated an infinite number of times. Nothing endures but the process of unending renovation: we must die that the world may be ever young. Death itself only reunites us with the absolute All whence we come, in which we move, and whither we return.103 But the imperial47 sage makes no attempt to explain why we should ever have separated ourselves from it in thought; or why one life should be better worth living than another in the universal vanity of things.
TWO:Arrived at Riempst I found the pretty village church in its full glory and the vicar engaged in performing his religious functions; the vicar of Sichem was also still at home. The only part of the report that was true was that various burgomasters from the environs had been sent to Tongres and had not returned since. The burgomaster of Riempst, with whom I had been imprisoned already once, was being searched for by the Germans everywhere, but could not be found. In several places I heard also that the Belgians were lying in the woods round about, and that something was being prepared at Riempst; but no one knew what. So I decided to go and inquire.Charlton spoke for the first time.
