And everywhere in
it is Life, Life, Life! ever renewing and doubling itself, and ever
swelling that mighty river which has no banks!
"And everywhere in it like begets like, _plus_ a little better or a
little worse; and the little worse finds its way into some backwater and
sticks there, and finally goes to the bottom, and nobody cares. And the
little better goes on bettering and bettering--not all man's folly or
perverseness can hinder _that_, nor make that headlong torrent stay, or
ebb, or roll backward for a moment--_c'est plus fort que nous_! ... The
record goes on beating itself, the high-water-mark gets higher and
higher till the highest on earth is reached that can be--and then, I
suppose, the earth grows cold and the sun goes out--to be broken up into
bits, and used all over again, perhaps! And betterness flies to warmer
climes and higher systems, to better itself still! And so on, from
better to better, from higher to higher, from warmer to warmer, and
bigger to bigger--for ever and ever and ever!
"But the final superlative of all, absolute all--goodness and
all-highness, absolute all-wisdom, absolute omnipotence, beyond which
there neither is nor can be anything more, will never be reached at
all--since there are no such things; they are abstractions; besides
which, attainment means rest, and rest stagnation, and stagnation an end
of all! And there is no end, and never can be--no end to Time and all
the things that are done in it--no end to Space and all the things that
fill it, or all would come together in a heap and smash up in the
middle--and there _is_ no middle!--no end, no beginning, no middle! _no
middle_, Gogo! think of _that_! it is the most inconceivable thing
of all!!!
"So who shall say where Shakespeare and you and I come in--tiny links in
an endless chain, so tiny that even Shakespeare is no bigger than we!
And just a little way behind us, those little wriggling transparent
things, all stomach, that we descend from; and far ahead of ourselves,
but in the direct line of a long descent from _us_, an ever-growing
conscious Power, so strong, so glad, so simple, so wise, so mild, and so
beneficent, that what can we do, even now, but fall on our knees with
our foreheads in the dust, and our hearts brimful of wonder, hope, and
love, and tender shivering awe; and worship as a yet unborn, barely
conceived, and scarce begotten _Child_--that which we have always been
taught to worship as a _Father_--That which is not now, but _is_ to
be--That which we shall all share in and be part and parcel of in the
dim future--That which is slowly, surely, painfully weaving Itself out
of us and the likes of us all through the limitless Universe, and Whose
coming we can but faintly foretell by the casting of its shadow on our
own slowly, surely, painfully awakening souls!"
* * * * *
Then she went on to speak of earthly things, and ask questions in her
old practical way.
Pages:
350
351
352
353
354
355
356
357
358
359
360
361
362
363
364
365
366
367
368
369
370
371
372
373
374