The shell was consumed; the gases of the body, 
combined and recombined, flamed off, free from organic 
form.  
Where was Arthur?  
His brain, his individuality, his life, were utterly de-
stroyed. As separate things, yes: Arthur had entered the 
universal consciousness.  
And I heard this utterance: or rather this is my 
translation into English of a single thought whose syn-
thesis is “Woe.”  
Substance is called spirit or matter.  
Spirit and matter are one, indivisible, eternal, inde-
structible.  
Infinite and eternal change!  
Infinite and eternal pain!  
No absolute: no truth, no beauty, no idea, nothing 
but the whirlwinds of form, unresting, unappeasable.  
Eternal hunger! Eternal war! Change and pain infi-
nite and unceasing.  
There is no individuality but in illusion. And the illu-
sion is change and pain, and its destruction is change 
and pain, and its new segregation from the infinite and 
eternal is change and pain; and substance infinite and 
eternal is change and pain unspeakable.  
Beyond thought, which is change and pain, lies be-
ing, which is change and pain.  
These were the last words intelligible; they lapsed 
into the eternal moan, Woe! Woe! Woe! Woe! Woe! 
Woe! Woe! in unceasing monotony that rings always in 
my ears if I let my thought fall from the height of activ-
ity, listen to the voice of my sensorium.  
In my sleep I am partially protected, and I keep a 
lamp constantly alight to burn tobacco in the room: but 
yet too often my dreams throb with that reiterated Woe! 
Woe! Woe! Woe! Woe! Woe! Woe!