Hints:

us: it rusts

of flame -- like our life has, ... their ways.



Like the elements of which we are composed, the action of these forces extends beyond us: it rusts iron and ripens corn. Far out on every side of us those elements are broadcast, driven in many currents, and birth and gesture and death and the springing of violets from the grave are but a few out of ten thousand resultant combinations. That clear, perpetual outline of face and limb is but an image of ours, under which we group them a design in a web, the actual threads of which pass out beyond it. This at least of flame -- like our life has, that it is but the concurrence, renewed from moment to moment, of forces parting sooner or later on their ways.
正如我们身体赖以构成的元素一样，这些力量元素在我们身体以外也同样发挥着作用——它可以使铁生锈、使谷物成熟。这些元素，在种种气流吹送之下，从我们的身体外向四面八方传播；人的诞生，人的姿态，人的死亡以及在人的坟头上生长出紫罗兰，这不过是成千上万化合结果的点滴例子而已。人类那轮廓分明、长久不变的容颜和肢体，不过是一种表象，在那框架之下，我们把种种元素凝聚在一张网里，那织网的细丝从网中穿出，又引向其他地方。在这一点上，我们的生命有些像火焰——它也是种种力量汇合的结果，这汇合虽不断延续，那些力量却早晚要各自飘散。