Pierre, Or The Ambiguities - pg. 94

But is life, indeed, a thing for all infidel levities, and we, its misdeemed beneficiaries, so utterl fools and infatuate, that what we take to be our strongest tower of delight, only stands at the caprice of the minutest event -- the falling of a leaf, the hearing of a voice, or the receipt of one little bit of paper scratched over with a few small characters by a sharpened feather? Are we so entirely insecure, that that casket, wherein we have placed our holiest and most final joy, and which we have secured by a lock of infinite deftness; can that casket be picked and desecrated at the merest stranger's touch, when we think that we alone hoold the only and chosen key?