The forest giant also had its time. A pine-seed after manifold adventures transformed itself, in a course of admirable permutations, into a mighty tree for more than seventy centuries. Yet its hour struck: and in its fate can be read the fates of all created things, after due allowance has been made for variety in age and kind and size. The giant at last lay in peace upon the fertile ground, having had its life, like us, and like us having nothing thereafter in eternity or in the infinite: though while it lived it obeyed the nature of its kind, and all powers in earth and heaven seemed leagued in its support. So we do all, while we exist. In the small circle which it is happiness for us to fill, we repeat the experience of those who have gone before; and in the breathing air, in the shining light, the dancing heat, the darkening shadow, in the rhythm of the friendly world we carry through to the end the courses laid down for us. And vainly do we seek to learn not merely whence we come and whither we go, but what and why we are, while we exist. CHAPTER 14 _The Theory of Eternal Sleeplessness_ What can chaos be but the mass of elements not yet conjoined with those other atoms which have been embodied and which have returned to the mass? The fallen tree was now sunken in an endless sleep. The rays of the sun playing over its ruined trunk gradually absorbed its colours. The discoloured redness of its substance, the yellow of its rotted dust, the fresh green of its last shoots slowly faded, while the winds took away its antique smell and the blue atmosphere re-incorporated the oxygen, the carbon, and the last elements of moisture in its wood. Finally the whole shape of the former tree disappeared, so that there remained on earth no visible or tangible trace of its former inhabitant; though its substance still existed. Its component parts could be found in the light and air, in the clouds, in a vibration, a breath, on a stone, either in material substances or in invisible radiations. They were the old elements of the sequoia, exactly as they had been in essence, though now their forms were so different that they conjured up no memories of the vanished tree. On the analogy it may well be that the solid particles, the liquids, the essences which together make up our apparent forms, have had equally varied incarnations, have been beautiful or vile, have been drab or splendid, have been delicious-smelling, have encountered a thousand unexpected changes and adventures before they were re-born as us. The energy which moves us, the matter which gives us substance, the impulses which excite us, the dreams which trouble us, and the occasional mysteries which vibrate in our souls and bodies may come from sources thousands of years old, and through a myriad phases of existence.