resentation of no-consciousness, and you will see the impossibility
of it. The effort to comprehend it causes the most tormenting dizziness.
We cannot conceive ourselves as not existing.

The visible universe, the universe that is created by the instinct of
self-preservation, becomes all too narrow for me. It is like a cramped
cell, against the bars of which my soul beats its wings in vain. Its
lack of air stifles me. More, more, and always more! I want to be
myself, and yet without ceasing to be myself to be others as well, to
merge myself into the totality of things visible and invisible, to
extend myself into the illimitable of space and to prolong myself into
the infinite of time. Not to be all and for ever is as if not to be--at
least, let me be my whole self, and be so for ever and ever. And to be
the whole of myself is to be everybody else. Either all or nothing!

All or nothing! And what other meaning can the Shakespearean "To be or
not to be" have, or that passage in _Coriolanus_ where it is said of
Marcius "He wants nothing of a god but eternity"? Eternity,
eternity!--that is the supreme desire! The thirst of eternity is what is
called love among men, and whosoever loves another wishes to eternalize
himself in him. Nothing is real that is not eternal.

From the poets of all ages and from the depths of their souls this
tremendous vision of the flowing away of life like water has wrung
bitter cries--from Pindar's "dream of a shadow," _skias onar_, to
Calderon's "life is a dream" and Shakespeare's "we are such stuff as
dreams are made on," this last a yet more tragic sentence than
Calderon's, for whereas the Castilian only declares that our life is a
dream, but not that we ourselves are the dreamers of it, the Englishman
makes us ourselves a dream, a dream that dreams.

The vanity of the passing world and love are the two fundamental and
heart-penetrating notes of true poetry. And they are two notes of which
neither can be sounded without causing the other to vibrate. The feeling
of the vanity of the passing world kindles love in us, the only thing
that triumphs over the vain and transitory, the only thing that fills
life again and eternalizes it. In appearance at any rate, for in
reality.... And love, above all when it struggles against destiny,
overwhelms us with the feeling of the vanity of this world of
appearances and gives us a glimpse of another world, in which destiny is
overcome and liberty is law.