Tuesday, January 10, 2012

#152 Nothing Behind but a Memory


It is human life. We are blown upon the world; we float buoyantly upon the summer air a little while, complacently showing off our grace of form and our dainty iridescent colors; then we vanish with a little puff, leaving nothing behind but a memory--and sometimes not even that. I suppose that at those solemn times when we wake in the deeps of the night and reflect, there is not one of us who is not willing to confess that he is really only a soap-bubble, and as little worth the making.
- Mark Twain's Own Autobiography (North American Review, 3 May 1907)

"He blew bubbles for the children."
From ST. NICHOLAS MAGAZINE, July 1916


Maxim of the Day

Pray to God that your attachment to such transitory things as wealth, name, and creature comforts may become less and less every day. ~ Ramakrishna