Page:Gaston Leroux--The man with the black feather.djvu/188

166 ''born all the time; one never dies. And when one dies, it is that one is being born again, and so on from the beginning of beginnings!''

"It is understood that at each birth the personality differs from the preceding and succeeding personalities, but each is only a modification of the divine and spiritual ego. These different personalities are in a way only the rings in the infinite chain of life which constitutes throughout the ages our Immortal Individuality.

"And then the Man of Light told me that when one has grasped this immense truth, one should not be astonished that some of the events of to-day recall some of the events of long-ago. But in order to live according to the law of wisdom one should live in the present and never look backward. I had looked backward too much. My spirit, badly guided by M. Lecamus, had during the last few weeks been wholly occupied with the long-ago; and undoubtedly, if that had gone on, I should soon have been reduced to a state dangerously near to that of madness. I ought to be no more astonished at having had another state of soul two hundred years ago than I ought to be astonished at having had another state of soul twenty years ago. Was it that the Theophras-