Chapter 71 - Page 2

the sun at meridian.
Vainly, we seek our Northwest Passages,--old alleys, and thoroughfares
of the whales.

"'Oh men! fellow men! we are only what we are; not what we would be;
nor every thing we hope for. We are but a step in a scale, that
reaches further above us than below. We breathe but oxygen. Who in
Arcturus hath heard of us? They know us not in the Milky Way. We prate
of faculties divine: and know not how sprouteth a spear of grass; we
go about shrugging our shoulders: when the firmament-arch is over us;
we rant of etherealities: and long tarry over our banquets; we demand
Eternity for a lifetime: when our mortal half-hours too often prove
tedious. We know not of what we talk. The Bird of Paradise out-flies
our flutterings. What it is to be immortal, has not yet entered
into our thoughts. 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. To live at all, is a high vocation; to live forever, and
run parallel with Oro, may truly appall us. Toil we not here? and
shall we be forever slothful elsewhere? Other worlds differ not much
from this, but in degree. Doubtless, a pebble is a fair specimen of
the universe.

"'We point at random. Peradventure at this instant, there are beings
gazing up to this very world as their future heaven. But the universe
is all over a heaven: nothing but stars on stars, throughout
infinities of expansion. All we see are but a cluster. Could we get to
Bootes, we would be no nearer Oro, than now he hath no place; but is
here. Already, in its unimaginable roamings, our system may have
dragged us through and through the spaces, where we plant cities of
beryl and jasper. Even now, we may be inhaling the ether, which we
fancy seraphic wings are fanning. But look round. There is much to be
seen here, and now. Do the archangels survey aught more glorious than
the constellations we nightly behold? Continually we slight the
wonders, we deem in reserve. We