When I was a boy, he said (which I don't believe he ever was), I
had a long journey to take between home and school. Exactly midway
there was a hill with an Inn upon it, at which we changed horses.
It was a point to which I looked forward with very different
feelings when going and returning. In the one case--for I hated
school--it seemed to frown darkly on me, and from that spot the
remainder of the way was dull and gloomy; in the other case, the
sun seemed always glinting on it, and the rest of the road was as a
fair avenue that leads to Paradise. The innkeeper received us with
equal hospitality on both occasions, and it was quite evident did
not care one farthing in which direction we were tending. He would
stand in front of his house, jingling his money--_our_ money--in
his pockets, and watch us depart with the greatest serenity,
whether we went east or west. I thought him at one time the most
genial of Bonifaces (for it was his profession to wear a smile),
and at another a mere mocker of human woe. When I grew up, I
perceived that he was a philosopher.

And now I keep the Midway Inn myself, and watch from the hill-top
the passengers come and go--some loth, some willing, like myself of
old--and listen to their talk in the coffee-room; or sometimes in a
private parlour, where, though they speak low and gravely, their
converse is still unrestrained, because, you see, I am the
landlord.

Sometimes they speak of Death and the Hereafter, of which the child
they buried yesterday knows more than the wisest of them, and more
than Shakespeare knew. The being totally ignorant of the subject
does not indeed (as you may perhaps have observed in other matters)