"When our dream of the lovely and the true grows dim in our wavering thoughts; when the image of harmony falls from its high estate and is wrapped in the fogs and shadows of earth; when nothing survives of our affection or our hope; when we pass away on the ceaseless stream of time, fleeting irrevocably like the world around - my friends! she whom I have lost and you so far away, how can we congratulate ourselves on having had the gift of life?
What is there that can truly support us? What are we? A sorrowful blending of blind matter with free thought, of hope with bondage; urged on by an invisible breath in spite of our complainings, grovelling beneath clear skies on the miry soil, crawling like insects on the muddy paths of life; and yet until the very last moment, dreaming of the pure raptures of a destiny sublime."
Obermann, Étienne Pivert de Senancour
