So he turned him towards a long Shadow, who was preaching to a very
quiet and listening crowd. He was just concluding his sermon.
"Therefore, dear Shadows, it is the more needful that we love one
another as much as we can, because that is not much. We have no such
excuse for not loving as mortals have, for we do not die like them. I
suppose it is the thought of that death that makes them hate so much.
Then again, we go to sleep all day, most of us, and not in the night,
as men do. And you know that we forget everything that happened the
night before; therefore, we ought to love well, for the love is short.
Ah! dear Shadow, whom I love now with all my shadowy soul, I shall not
love thee to-morrow eve, I shall not know thee; I shall pass thee in
the crowd and never dream that the Shadow whom I now love is near me
then. Happy Shades! for we only remember our tales until we have told
them here, and then they vanish in the shadow-churchyard, where we bury
only our dead selves. Ah! brethren, who would be a man and remember?
Who would be a man and weep? We ought indeed to love one another, for
we alone inherit oblivion; we alone are renewed with eternal birth; we
alone have no gathered weight of years. I will tell you the awful fate
of one Shadow who rebelled against his nature, and sought to remember
the past. He said, 'I _will_ remember this eve.' He fought with the
genial influences of kindly sleep when the sun rose on the awful dead
day of light; and although he could not keep quite awake, he dreamed of
the foregone eve, and he never forgot his dream.
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