THE WHEEL OF CHANCE.
I walked along, absorbed in deep thought, trying to
understand the vision of the Angel. And suddenly,
as I lifted my head, I saw midway in the sky a huge,
revolving circle covered with Kabalistic letters and
symbols. The circle turned with terrible velocity,
and around it, falling down and flying up, symbolic figures
of the serpent and the dog revolved; above it sat an
immovable sphinx.
In clouds, on the four quarters of heaven, I saw the
four apocalyptical beings, one with the face of a lion,
another with the race of a bull, the third with a face, of an
eagle, and the fourth with the face of a bull. And each of
them read an open book.
And I heard the voices of Zarathustra's beasts:—
"All go, all return,—the wheel of life ever turns. All die, all flourish
again,—the year of existence runs eternally.
"All perish, all live again, the same house of existence is I ever
building. All separate, all meet again, the ring of existence is ever true to
itself.
"Existence begins at every moment. Round each 'here' rolls 'there'.
The middle is everywhere. The way of eternity is a curve.
