disorder, and thoughtless pleasure a degradation. Let us have confidence
in this deep utterance of our nature. Good, truth, beauty descend as
rays of streaming light into the shadows of our existence; let us follow
them with the eye of faith to the divine focus from whence they
proceed. All is fleeting, all is disappearing incessantly beneath our
steps; but our soul is not staggered at this swift lapse of all things,
only because she carries in herself the pledges of a changeless
eternity. "The ephemeral spectator of an eternal spectacle, man raises
for a moment his eyes to heaven, and closes them again for ever; but
during the fleeting instant which is granted to him, from all points of
the sky and from the bounds of the universe, sets forth from every world
a consoling ray and strikes his upward gaze, announcing to him that
between that measureless space and himself there exists a close
relation, and that he is allied to eternity."[158]

And are these sublime _pressentiments_ only dreams after all? Dreams!
Know you not that our dreams create nothing, and that they are never
anything else than confused reminiscences and fantastic combinations of
the realities of our waking consciousness? What then is that mysterious
waking during which we have seen the eternal, the infinite, the
perfection of goodness, the fulness of joy, all those sublime images
which come to haunt our spirit during the dream of life? Recollections
of our origin! foreshadowings of our destinies! While then all below is
transitory, and is escaping from us in a ceaseless flight, let us
abandon ourselves without fear to these instincts of the soul--


As a bird, if it light on a sprig too slight
The feathery freight to bear,
Yet, conscious of wings, tosses fearless, and sings,