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And what was always true of all the dead is far more true to-day, when only the best are chosen for the tomb. In the region which we believe to be under the earth, which we call the Kingdom of the Shades and which in reality is the ethereal region and the Kingdom of Light, there are at this moment disturbances no less profound than those which we have experienced on the surface of the earth. The young dead have invaded it from every side; and since the beginning of this world they have never been so numerous, so full of energy and zeal. Whereas in the customary sequence of the years the dwelling-place of those who leave us receives only weary and exhausted lives, there is not one in this incomparable host who, to borrow Pericles’ expression, “has not departed from life at the height of glory.” Not one of them but has gone up, not down, to his death clad in the greatest sacrifice that man can make for an idea that cannot die. All that we have hitherto believed, all that we have striven to attain beyond ourselves, all that has lifted us to the level at which we stand, all that has overcome the evil days and the evil instincts of human nature: all this could have been no more than lies and illusions if such men as these, such a mass of merit and of glory, were really annihilated, had for ever disappeared, were for ever useless and voiceless, for ever without influence in a world to which they have given life.