Hope not ever to see Heaven. I have come to lead you to the
other shore; into eternal darkness; into fire and into ice.

To die is landing on some distant shore.

"Now we must ford these shadowy waters," said Grandfather Death, "in part because your destiny is on the other side, and in part because by the contact of these waters all your memories will be washed away from you. And that is requisite to your destiny." "But what is my destiny?" "It is that of all loving creatures, Count Manuel. If you have been yourself you cannot reasonably be punished, but if you have been somebody else you will find that this is not permitted." "That is a dark saying, only too well suited to this doubtful place, and I do not understand you." "No," replied Grandfather Death, "but that does not matter."

We are the dead. Our only true life is in the future.

They have no hope of death, and their darkened life is so mean that they are envious of every other fate. Earth allows no mention of them to exist: mercy and justice reject them: let us not talk of them, but look and pass.

For the life it leads is dark with evil, sunk in manifold death. It sees no longer what the soul should see. It can no longer rest within itself but is forever being dragged towards the external, the lower, the dark.

These have no hope that death will overcome.
And so degraded is the life they lead
all look with envy on all other fates.

But if any far-off state there be
Dearer than life to mortality,
The hand of the Dark hath hold thereof,
And mist is under the mist above;
So we are sick for life, and cling
On earth to this nameless and shining thing,
For other life is a fountain sealed,
And the deeps below are unrevealed,
And we drift on legends for ever.

I am going into the darkness of the darkness for ever.

My soul is like the dead sea, over which no bird can fly; when it gets halfway, it sinks down spent to its death and destruction.