the fine flower of my existence, the best that is in me, and when I lie below the sod, and worms have destroyed this body, then will arise another self better and happier than the old one, yes, better, because I shall serve as a stepping-stone from which to see more clearly than I did.—You who are born of me, and will see the light when my eyes can no more behold it; through you I shall taste the vintage of the long future years, through you I shall enjoy the known and the unknown. All around me is passing as I shall pass, but you will lead me, ever farther and upward. I am no longer bound to my little holding here on earth; beyond my fields, beyond my life, the lines of the future stretch out into the infinite; they cover the years to come as the Milky Way covers the night sky. I have sown the seed of future harvests, and in you who will live after me I put my desire and my eternal hope.
