Claude Farrère

“ Where would he go, what would he be, after he had passed the experience called death?
"I haven't the slightest idea," he said to himself, as he lay perfectly motionless, unable even to open his lips. "I don't know, and nobody knows, and no living person has ever known. But I shall know very soon–I shall know what no living person has ever known!" But at no moment in all the period of waiting, he was sure of it, had there been the slightest sensation of fear. Van Mitten wondered at this, passively and coolly. ”

“ He had not devoted a great deal of time to speculation during all the years of his long life. Van Mitten had never been what is called a religious man, but neither had he been what is called an atheist. He had been one of those men who take things as they come–who don't understand about the eternal matters, and who make no particular effort to do so. ”

“ He should never be able to remember his past life, he should never be able to know that he had been something before, something different–a thing, even a person–in the past that was past for ever and ever. ”