United States or Gambia ? Vote for the TOP Country of the Week !


Composer, sculptor, painter, poet, prophet, sage, these are the makers of the after-world, the architects of heaven. The world is beautiful because they have lived; without them, labouring humanity would perish. He who cherishes a beautiful vision, a lofty ideal in his heart, will one day realize it.

When the geologist of the after-world begins his work who can tell how many hundreds of thousands of years hence? he will find, over all our stratification and palæontology, a DRIFT containing the remains of the ancient human species here a tibia of a stockbroker, there the skull of a poet here a lady's dressing-case in a fossilised state, there a gentleman's box of cigars: besides all these odds and ends, there will doubtless be ruins of temples, fortresses, ships, gin-palaces, and other pertinents of an active, passionate humanity, the purposes of which will form most curious matter of speculation for the more angelic species then at last come upon the earth.

For these hours, the most fruitful of our lives, we are grateful to Oxford, as long as friendship lives; that is, as long as life and memory remain with us. And, "if anything endure, if hope there be," our conscious existence in the after-world would ask for no better companions than those who walked with us by the Isis and the Cherwell.

Wherever our name resounds, they must turn pale, and when we set all against all, we shall then be able to know whether we lose, or win, we shall extirpate them, or they us; and if we cease to exist, so may the wasted wilderness, the depopulated land, the ruined palaces, and burnt-down temples and horror and desolation, announce to the after-world what we have suffered and done.

Old age and the grave, with some dark and yet half-sceptical terror of an after-world these were ideas that clung about his bones like a disease. An old ape, as he says, may play all the tricks in its repertory, and none of them will tickle an audience into good humour. "Tousjours vieil synge est desplaisant."

Her comfort and her life seemed in the after-world. A warm, strong feeling for her came up. She seemed to yearn, as she sang, for the mystery and comfort. He put his hope in her. He longed for the sermon to be over, to speak to her. The throng carried her out just before him. He could nearly touch her. She did not know he was there. He saw the brown, humble nape of her neck under its black curls.

Swarthy, black-eyed, stout, half-centuried, fiercely cunning, and immoderately sensual, her first salutation was expressed in a phrase such as a Corinthian soul might be greeted with on entering that portion of the after-world devoted to the fastest of the fair.

"Miracles of a permanent and beneficial nature are performed by true saints because they have attuned themselves to the omnipotent Creator. Afzal was merely an ordinary man with an extraordinary power of penetrating a subtle realm not usually entered by mortals until death." "I understand now, Guruji. The after-world appears to have some charming features." Master agreed.

"Know thy punishment, son of a dog with a dog's heart, and prepare for a daily death," said Kaid. "This woman thou didst so foully wrong, even when thou didst wrong her, she was a leper." A low cry broke from Achmet, for now when death came he must go unclean to the after-world, forbidden Allah's presence. Broken and abject he listened. "She knew not, till thou wert gone," continued Kaid.

The second of the points on which he was genuine and emphatic was common to the middle ages; a deep and somewhat snivelling conviction of the transitory nature of this life and the pity and horror of death. Old age and the grave, with some dark and yet half-sceptical terror of an after-world these were ideas that clung about his bones like a disease.