Mare d'Auteuil, to melt and mingle with the water and each other till
the Mare d'Auteuil itself was as salt as salt can be.

Not till that Mare d'Auteuil of the sun is saturated with the salt of
the earth, of earthly life and knowledge, will the purpose be complete,
and then old mother earth may well dry up into a cinder like the moon;
its occupation will be gone, like hers--'adieu, panier, les vendanges
sont faites!'

And, as for the sun and its surrounding ocean of life--ah, that is
beyond _me_! but the sun will dry up, too, and its ocean of life no
doubt be drawn to other greater suns. For everything seems to go on more
or less in the same way, only crescendo, everywhere and forever.

* * * * *

You must understand that it is not a bit like an ocean, nor a bit like
water-drops, or grains of salt, or specks of spinal marrow; but it is
only by such poor metaphors that I can give you a glimpse of what I
mean, since you can no longer understand me, as you used to do on
earthly things, by the mere touch of our hands.

* * * * *

Gogo, I am the only little water-drop, the one grain of salt that has
not yet been able to dissolve and melt away in that universal sea; I am
the exception.

It is as though a long, invisible chain bound me still to the earth,
and I were hung at the other end of it in a little transparent locket, a