Ephemeral

Later, in the evil days of strife, even before the time of Hari Seldon, the weaker sort of men, tired of the periodic decades of insecurity and danger; weary of sacked planets and a ghostly succession of ephemeral emperors making their way to the Purple for a few wicked, fruitless years – these men fled the populated centers and sought shelter in the barren nooks of the Galaxy.

Of course, all that happened tonight was ephemeral, fantastic, unseemly—yet it lacked neither colour nor originality.

It seems as though man’s lodging partook of his ephemeral character, and God’s house of his eternity.

I am the friend of the great cardinal!” “Of the great cardinal!” “Perhaps you would contest his right to that title, Madame?” “I would contest nothing; but I tell you that the favor of a minister is ephemeral, and that a man must be mad to attach himself to a minister.

For a moment Ralph simply stood where he was, struck dumb by their beauty-the ephemeral, powerful beauty that was, he supposed, what Short-Time life was mostly about.

By That Long Scan of Waves By that long scan of waves, myself call’d back, resumed upon myself, In every crest some undulating light or shade—some retrospect, Joys, travels, studies, silent panoramas—scenes ephemeral, The long past war, the battles, hospital sights, the wounded and the dead, Myself through every by-gone phase—my idle youth—old age at hand, My three-score years of life summ’d up, and more, and past, By any grand ideal tried, intentionless, the whole a nothing, And haply yet some drop within God’s scheme’s ensemble—some wave, or part of wave, Like one of yours, ye multitudinous ocean.

It was during an access of this kind that I suddenly left my home, and bending my steps towards the near Alpine valleys, sought in the magnificence, the eternity of such scenes, to forget myself and my ephemeral, because human, sorrows.

Wounding and killing seemed ephemeral pains, so very brief and sore was life with us.

To conclude, always observe how ephemeral and worthless human things are, and what was yesterday a little mucus tomorrow will be a mummy or ashes.