emember oh man! that dust thou art, and unto dust thou shalt return,
says the priest to the faithful, when he scatters the ashes on the day
after the carnival.

The body disappears entirely. It goes where the corpse of Caesar went an
hour after the extinction of his pyre. Nor will there be more remains of
any of us. And the whole of Humanity, and the Earth itself, will also
disappear one day. Let no one talk of the Progress of Humanity as an
end! That would be too gross a decoy.

If the soul were also to disappear in smoke, what would be left of the
vital and intellectual organization of the world? Nothing.

On this hypothesis, _all_ would be reduced to _nothing_.

Our reason is not immense, our terrestrial faculties are sufficiently
limited, but this reason and these faculties suffice none the less to
make us feel the improbability, the absurdity, of this hypothesis, and
we reject it as incompatible with the sublime grandeur of the spectacle
of the universe.

Undoubtedly, Creation does not seem to concern itself with us. It
proceeds on its inexorable course without consulting our sensations.
With the poet we regret the implacable serenity of Nature, opposing the
irony of its smiling splendor to our mourning, our revolts, and our
despair.

Que peu de temps suffit pour changer toutes choses!
Nature au front serein, comme vous oubliez!
Et comme vous brisez dans vos metamorphoses
Les fils mysterieux ou nos coeurs sont lies.

D'autres vont maintenant passer ou nous passames;
Nous y sommes venus, d'autres vont y venir,
Et le songe qu'avaient ebauche nos deux ames,
Ils le continueront sans pouvoir le finir.

Car personne ici-bas ne termine et n'acheve;
Les pires des humains sont comme les meilleurs;
Nous nous eveillons tous au meme endroit du reve:
Tout commence en ce monde et tout finit ailleurs.

Repondez, vallon pur, repondez, solitude!
O Nature, abritee en ce desert si beau,
Quand nous serons couches tous deux, dans l'attitude
Que donne aux morts pensifs la forme du tombeau,

Est-ce que vous serez a ce point insensible,
De nous savoir perdus, morts avec nos amours,
Et de continuer votre fete paisible
Et de toujours sourire et de chanter toujours?[16]

_Note.--Free Translation._

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