'
'And then one recollects that every one of them has been a living
thing--a whole history of birth, and growth, and propagation, and
death. Waste it cannot be, or cruelty on the part of the Maker: but
why this infinite development of life, apparently only to furnish out
of it now and then a cartload of shell-sand to these lazy farmers?
But after all, there is not so much life in all those shells put
together as in one little child: and it may die the hour that it is
born! What we call life is but an appearance and a becoming; the
true life of existence belongs only to spirits. And whether or not
we, or the sea-shell there, are at any given moment helping to make
up part of some pretty little pattern in this great kaleidoscope
called the material universe, yet, in the spirit all live to Him, and
shall do so for ever.'
And thereon he rambled off into a long lecture on 'species-spirits,'
and 'individual-spirits,' and 'personal spirits,' doubtless most
important. But I, what between the sun, the luncheon, and the
metaphysic, sank into soft slumbers, from which I was only awakened
by the carriage stopping, according to our order, on the top of
Saunton hill.
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