![]() "If human beings are not drowned," asked the little mermaid, "can they live forever? do they never die as we do here in the sea?" "Yes," replied the old lady, "they must also die, and their term of life is even shorter than ours. We sometimes live to three hundred years, but when we cease to exist here we only become the foam on the surface of the water, and we have not even a grave down here of those we love. We have not immortal souls, we shall never live again; but, like the green sea-weed, when once it has been cut off, we can never flourish more. Human beings, on the contrary, have a soul which lives forever, lives after the body has been turned to dust. It rises up through the clean, pure air beyond the glittering stars. As we rise out of the water, and behold all the land of the earth, so do they rise to unknown and glorious regions we shall never see." "Why have not we an immortal soul?" asked the little mermaid mournfully; "I would give gladly all the hundreds of years that I have to live, to be a human being only for one day, and to have the hope of knowing the happiness of that glorious world above the stars." -Hans Christian Andersen (1836) I am barely old enough to be on this site. Think what you will. Favorite books include The Chronicles of Narnia, Entwined, The Schwa Was Here, Wintergirls, Beastly, The Seven Kingdoms, Burn Bright, Gone, and The Hunger Games. "For I know the plans I have for you," declares the LORD, "plans to prosper you and not to harm you, plans to give you hope and a future." |