IV

But unhappily this is not the only species of change. It is not that
which has brought a wail from the ages, when men have seen what they
prize slip away. The common root of sorrow has been destructive
change. Holding the watch in my hand, I may drop it on the floor; and
at once the crystal, which has been so transparently protective, is
gone. If the floor is of stone, the back of the watch may be wrenched
away, the wheels of its delicate machinery jarred asunder. Destruction
has come upon it, and not merely an extraneous accident. In
consequence of altered surroundings, dissolution is wrought within.
Change of a lamentable sort has come. What before was a beautiful
whole, organically constituted in the way described in my first two
chapters, has been torn asunder. What we formerly beheld with delight
has disappeared.

And let us not accept false comfort. We often hear it said that, after
all, destruction is an illusion. There is no such thing. What is once
in the world is here forever. No particle of the watch can by any
possibility be lost. And what is true of the watch is true of things
far higher, of persons even. When persons decay and die, may not their
destruction be only in outward seeming? We cannot imagine absolute
cessation. As well imagine an absolute beginning. There is no loss.
Everything abides. Only to our apprehension do destructive changes
occur. We are all familiar with consolation of this sort, and how
inwardly unsatisfactory it is! For while it is true that no particle
of the watch is destroyed, it is precisely those particles which were
in our minds of little consequence. Almost equally well they might
have been of gold, silver, or steel. The precious part of the, watch