"Every soul is big enough for the man to move in, small as it is,"
said Bart.

"What is your youth doing in his, now?" asked the Doctor.

"He is sitting down, resigned," answered Bart.

"If his soul was dark, why was he blindfolded?" asked the Doctor.

"Well, I don't know. For the same reason that men with eyes think that
a blind man cannot see so well in the dark, perhaps," was the answer.
"And see here," looking into the water, "away down here is a beautiful
star. There, I can blot it out with my hand! and see, now, how I can
shatter it into wavelets of stars, and now break it into a hundred, by
merely disturbing the water where I see it, 'like sunshine broken in
a rill.' Who knows but it may be the just-arrived light of an old, old
star which has just come to us? How easy to climb back on one of these
filmy rays, myriads of millions of leagues, home to its source! I
will take off the bandage and let the poor boy see it, and climb if he
may."

"You are fanciful and metaphysical," said the Doctor. "Euclid has not
operated, I fear. Why would you go up to the source of that ray? Would
you expect to find God and heaven there?"

"I should but traverse the smallest portion of God," said Bart, "and
yet how far away He seems just now. Somebody's unshapen hand cuts His
light off; and I cannot see Him by looking down, and I haven't the
strength to look up."