“That makes me want to cry.” She wished he hadn’t said it. “I know. It’s not the most original argument, and I’m hardly the first scholar to make it—that the ephemerality of things is what gives them meaning. That things are only beautiful because they don’t last. Full moons, flowers in bloom, you. But if any of that is evidence, I think it must be true.” “Some things are constant,” Effy said. “They must be. I think that’s why so many poets write about the sea.” “Maybe the idea of constancy is what’s actually terrifying. Fear of the sea is fear of the eternal—because how can you win against
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