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must live, you must scramble. Here--it is nothing; a thing that passes.
One can think in peace."
"Yes," said Denton. "How flimsy it all is! From here more than half of
it is swallowed by the night.... It will pass."
"
"
We shall pass first," said Elizabeth.
I know," said Denton. "If life were not a moment, the whole of history
would seem like the happening of a day.... Yes--we shall pass. And the
city will pass, and all the things that are to come. Man and the Overman
and wonders unspeakable. And yet ..."
He paused, and then began afresh. "I know what you feel. At least I
fancy.... Down there one thinks of one's work, one's little vexations
and pleasures, one's eating and drinking and ease and pain. One lives,
and one must die. Down there and everyday--our sorrow seemed the end of
life....
"Up here it is different. For instance, down there it would seem
impossible almost to go on living if one were horribly disfigured,
horribly crippled, disgraced. Up here--under these stars--none of those
things would matter. They don't matter.... They are a part of something.
One seems just to touch that something--under the stars...."
He stopped. The vague, impalpable things in his mind, cloudy emotions
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