HEINRICH HEINE - Repositories

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DREAMING AND DEATH.
Why have we not a much greater fear
of going to sleep than of being laid in
our graves ? Is it not dreadful to think
that the body can remain cleath-still
throughout a whole night while the soul
within it pursues its most active life, a
life clothed with all the terrors of that
separation which we have created between
body and spirit ? When in some
future age both will be again united in
our consciousness, then perhaps there
will be no more dreaming, or at least
only the sick, those in whom the harmony
of life is destroyed, will dream.
DEATH-BED CONVERSIONS.
So many free-thinkers, you say, have
been converted on their death-beds!
But do not make too much of this.
Such stories of conversion belong at
best to pathology, and are very doubtful
evidence for your case. After all,
they only prove that it was impossible
to convert these free-thinkers so long as
they went about under God's open sky,
in the enjoyment of their healthy senses
and in full possession of their reasoning
faculty. °