"Here I sit, alive, thirsting for life and joy, and read my death-
warrant. Yet I cannot even protest against it!"
As in a frenzy of despair, he clasped his forehead and with ineffectual
fury appealed to some Power invisible and supreme.
"What has man done to thee that thou shouldst mock him thus? If thou
dost exist, why dost thou hide thyself from him? Why hast thou made me
thus, that even though I would believe in thee I yet have no belief in
my own faith? And, if thou shouldst answer me, how can I tell if it is
thou or I myself that makes reply? If I am right in wishing to live,
why dost thou rob me of this right which thou thyself gavest to me? If
thou hast need of our sufferings, well, these let us bear for love of
thee. Yet we know not even if a tree be not of greater worth than a
man."
"For a tree there is always hope. Even when felled it can put forth
fresh shoots, and regain new verdure and new life. But man dies, and
vanishes for ever. I lie down never to rise again. If I knew for
certain that after milliards of years I should come to life again,
patient and uncomplaining I would wait through all those centuries in
outer darkness."
Once more he read from the book: "What profit hath a man of all his labour which he taketh under the
sun?"
"One generation passeth away and another generation cometh, but the
earth abideth for ever."
"The sun also ariseth, and the sun goeth down and hasteth to his place
where he arose."
"The wind goeth toward the south and turneth about unto the north: it
whirleth about continually; and the wind returneth again according to
his circuits."
"The thing that hath been, it is that which shall be; there is nothing
new under the sun."
"There is no remembrance of former things; neither shall there be any
remembrance of things that are to come with those that shall come
after."
"I, the Preacher, was King over Israel in Jerusalem."
"I, the Preacher, was King!" He shouted out these last words, as in
vehement anger and despair, and then looked round in alarm, fearing
lest some one should have heard him. Then he took a sheet of paper and
began to write."
"I here begin this document which will end with my decease."
"Bah! how absurd it sounds!" he exclaimed as he pushed the paper from
him with such violence that it fell to the floor."