But I regard myself, not as speaking to please Emerson's admirers, not as speaking to please myself; but rather, I repeat, as communing with Time and Nature concerning the productions of this beautiful and rare spirit, and as resigning what of him is by their unalterable decree touched with Caducity, in order the better to mark and secure that in him which is immortal.
"Elementary Guide to Literary Criticism"
F. V. N. Painter
Perhaps the numerous political and social revolutions, the frequent successions of peoples, rulers and subjects in turn, had accustomed the mind to conceive and anticipate perpetual changes, of which the successive ages of the world were but the supreme expression; and finally, perhaps that quasi-messianic expectation of the return of Quetzalcoatl, to be accompanied by a complete renewal of things, may have given an additional point of attachment to this belief in the Caducity of the whole existing order.
"Lectures on the Origin and Growth of Religion as Illustrated by the Native Religions of Mexico and Peru"
Albert Réville