Monuments may be builded to express the affection or pride of friends, or to display their wealth, but they are only valuable for the characters which they perpetuate.
You are your own forerunner, and the towers you have builded are but the foundation of your giant-self. And that self too shall be a foundation.
It is trial that proves one thing weak and another strong. A house built on the sand is in fair weather just as good as if builded on a rock. A cobweb is as good as the mightiest cable when there is no strain upon it.
When we think of friends, and call their faces out of the shadows, and their voices out of the echoes that faint along the corridors of memory, and do it without knowing why save that we love to do it, we content ourselves that that friendship is a Reality, and not a Fancy--that it is builded upon a rock, and not upon the sands that dissolve away with the ebbing tides and carry their monuments with them.
In the beginning all souls were as a unity to the God-Force. As self added or subtracted that which was in keeping with God's purpose, ye added or subtracted from the blessings ye might be conscious of in materiality. Thus karma is builded. And the law is perfect - what ye sow, ye reap.