The night of time far surpasseth the day, and who knows when was the equinox?⁠ ⁠… In vain do individuals hope for immortality, or any patent from oblivion, in preservations below the moon; men have been deceived even in their flatteries above the sun, and studied conceits to perpetuate their names in heaven. The various cosmography of that part hath already varied the names of contrived constellations; Nimrod is lost in Orion, and Osyris in the Dog-star.”

As he murmured these rhythmical dirges with his lips and got a kind of comfort from them and a doubtful hope that Christie did too, his own mind⁠—like hers no doubt⁠—went circling the bruised ground of their trouble, of this wretched dilemma of his, like a dragonfly hovering over a stagnant pool.