A Strange Manuscript Found in a Copper Cylinder James De Mille

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ring-shaped, but the action of the ocean serves to throw fragments of
rock into the inner depression, which thus fills up; firm land
appears; the rock crumbles into soil; the winds and birds and currents
bring seeds here, and soon the new island is covered with verdure.
These little creatures have played a part in the past quite as
important as in the present. All Germany rests upon a bank of coral;
and they seem to have been most active during the Oolitic Period."
"How do the creatures act?" asked Featherstone.
"Nobody knows," replied the doctor.
A silence now followed, which was at last broken by Oxenden.
"After all," said he, "these monsters and marvels of nature form the
least interesting feature in the land of the Kosekin. To me the people
themselves are the chief subject of interest. Where did they get that
strange, all-pervading love of death, which is as strong in them as
love of life is in us?"
"Why, they got it from the imagination of the writer of the
manuscript," interrupted Melick.
"Yes, it's easy to answer it from your point of view; yet from my
point of view it is more difficult. I sometimes think that it may be
the strong spirituality of the Semitic race, carried out under
exceptionally favorable circumstances to the ultimate results; for the
Semitic race more than all others thought little of this life, and
turned their affections to the life that lives beyond this. The
Kosekin may thus have had a spiritual development of their own, which
ended in this.
"Yet there may be another reason for it, and I sometimes think that
the Kosekin may be nearer to the truth than we are. We have by nature
a strong love of life--it is our dominant feeling--but yet there is in
the minds of all men a deep underlying conviction of the vanity of
life, and the worthlessness. In all ages and among all races the best,
the purest, and the wisest have taught this truth--that human life is
not a blessing; that the evil predominates over the good; and that our
best hope is to gain a spirit of acquiescence with its inevitable
ills. All philosophy and all religions teach us this one solemn truth,