[Italics are marked with _underscores_.] THE DRAMA OF LOVE AND DEATH _A Study_ _of Human Evolution and_ _Transfiguration_ By Edward Carpenter NEW YORK AND LONDON MITCHELL KENNERLEY 1912 _Copyright 1912 by_ _Mitchell Kennerley_ Contents CHAP. PAGE _The Delphian Sibyl overlooking the Earth_ vii I. Introduction 1 II. The Beginnings of Love 5 III. Love as an Art 24 IV. Its Ultimate Meanings 48 V. The Art of Dying 69 VI. The Passage of Death 87 Note on Consciousness in the Body 107 VII. Is there an After-Death State? 111 VIII. The Underlying Self 131 Note on Mediumistic Trance 156 IX. Survival of the Self 162 X. The Inner or Spiritual Body 176 XI. The Creation and Materialization of Forms 192 XII. Reincarnation 215 XIII. The Divine Soul 237 XIV. The Return Journey 248 XV. The Mystery of Personality 262 XVI. Conclusion 284 Appendix 289 _The Delphian Sibyl_ (_On her mountain-slope overlooking the Earth_) _The coastline ranges far, the skies unfold; The mountains rise in glory, stair on stair; The darting Sun seeks Daphne as of old In thickets dark where laurel blooms are fair. The ancient sea, deep wrinkled, ever young, With salt lip kisses still the silver strand; In caverns dwell the Nymphs, their loves among, And Titans still with strange fire shake the land._ _A thousand generations here have come, And wandered o’er these hills, and faced the light; A thousand times slight man from mortal womb Has leapt, and lapsed again into the night. Here tribesmen dwelt, and fought, and curst their star, And scoured both land and sea to sate their needs; Prophetic eyes of youth gazed here afar, With lips half open brooding on great deeds._ _Nor dreamed each little mortal of the Past, Nor the deep sources of his life divined, Watching his herds, or net in ocean cast, Deaf to th’ ancestral voices down the wind; Nor guessed what strange sweet likenesses should rise, Selves of himself, far in the future years, With his own soul within their sunlit eyes, And in their hearts his secret hopes and fears._