"Thou wouldst not heed the guiding of ghosts that were wiser than we....
Cowards and weaklings curse the world. The strong do not blame the
world: it gives them all that they desire. By power they break and take
and keep. Life for them is a joy, a triumph, an exultation. But
creatures without power merit nothing; and nothingness becomes their
portion. Thou and we shall presently enter into nothingness."
"Do ye fear?"--asked the Man.
"There is reason for fear," the Souls answered. "Yet no one of us would
wish to delay the time of what we fear by continuing to make part of
such an existence as thine."
"But ye have died innumerable times?"--wonderingly said the Man.
"No, we have not," said the Souls,--"not even once that we can remember;
and our memory reaches back to the beginnings of this world. We die only
with the race."