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Far Away and Long Ago by W. H. (William Henry) Hudson
page 42 of 299 (14%)
concentrate his thought--he cannot think at all; his consciousness is
in its dawn; he revels in colours, in odours, is thrilled by touch and
taste and sound, and is like a well-nourished pup or kitten at play on
a green turf in the sunshine. This being so, one would have thought
that the pain of the revelation I had received would have quickly
vanished--that the vivid impressions of external things would have
blotted it out and restored the harmony. But it was not so; the pain
continued and increased until it was no longer to be borne; then I
sought my mother, first watching until she was alone in her room. Yet
when with her I feared to speak lest with a word she should confirm
the dreadful tidings. Looking down, she all at once became alarmed at
the sight of my face, and began to question me. Then, struggling
against my tears, I told her of the words which had been spoken at the
old dog's burial, and asked her if it was true, if I--if she--if all
of us had to die and be buried in the ground? She replied that it was
not wholly true; it was only true in a way, since our bodies had to
die and be buried in the earth, but we had an immortal part which
could not die. It was true that old Caesar had been a good, faithful
dog, and felt and understood things almost like a human being, and
most persons believed that when a dog died he died wholly and had no
after-life. We could not know that; some very great, good men had
thought differently; they believed that the animals, like us, would
live again. That was also her belief--her strong hope; but we could
not know for certain, because it had been hidden from us. For
ourselves, we knew that we could not really die, because God Himself,
who made us and all things, had told us so, and His promise of eternal
life had been handed down to us in His Book--in the Bible.

To all this and much more I listened trembling, with a fearful
interest, and when I had once grasped the idea that death when it came
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