“If they could have caught it in the basin of some empty sea, they could have floated on it all their fleets of battleships.”
Once in the night they spoke together:
“And all his gods, his many gods in many lands with many faces—they all sleep now in their ancient temples; it is at last the true twilight of the gods.”
“They set shepherds over them. Then the shepherds declared themselves appointed by the Creator of the universe to lead other men as their sheep: now what difference is there between the sheep and the shepherds?”
“The shepherds lie with the sheep in the same white pasture. They were all sheep: they had no shepherd.”
“And their sins were the sins of sheep, but the sins of silly sheep.”
“Still, what think you became of all that men did? How could all that perish? It was so solid, so enduring; it was so splendid; it seemed worthy to be immortal.”
“What became of Science? How could all that Science was come to naught?”
“And his Art—that inner light of himself which was Art? Do his pictures hang nowhere? Is his music never to be heard again?”
“And the love that was in him—was it but a blind force rising into him as the power of the clouds?”