It would indeed be almost intolerable.
Again, the anxiety of change seems inconsistent with perfect happiness;
and yet a wearisome, interminable monotony, the same thing over and over
again forever and ever without relief or variety, suggests dulness rather
than bliss.
I feel that to me, said Greg, "God has promised not the heaven of the
ascetic temper, or the dogmatic theologian, or of the subtle mystic, or of
the stern martyr ready alike to inflict and bear; but a heaven of purified
and permanent affections--of a book of knowledge with eternal leaves, and
unbounded capacities to read it--of those we love ever round us, never
misconceiving us, or being harassed by us--of glorious work to do, and
adequate faculties to do it--a world of solved problems, as well as of
realized ideals."
"For still the doubt came back,--Can God provide
For the large heart of man what shall not pall,
Nor through eternal ages' endless tide
On tired spirits fall?
"These make him say,--If God has so arrayed
A fading world that quickly passes by,
Such rich provision of delight has made
For every human eye,
"What shall the eyes that wait for him survey
When his own presence gloriously appears
In worlds that were not founded for a day,
But for eternal years?" [9]
Here science seems to suggest a possible answer: the solution of problems
which have puzzled us here; the acquisition of new ideas; the unrolling
the history of the past; the world of animals and plants; the secrets of
space; the wonders of the stars and of the regions beyond the stars.
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