leave a man, and go off on its own. It dies too. It was part of
the man--as much as his heart or brain."

"That's only an opinion. Nobody can be positive. We don't know
anything about what life really means, and we haven't got the
machinery to find out."

"By analogy we can," argued Tom. "Where are you going to draw the
line? Life is life, and a sponge is just as much alive as a
herring; a nettle is just as much alive as an oak-tree; and an
oak-tree is just as much alive as you are. What becomes of its
vital spark when you eat an oyster?"

"You wouldn't believe in a life after death at all, then?"

"It's a pure assumption, Henry. I'd like to believe in it--who
wouldn't? Because, if you honestly did, it would transform this
life into something infinitely different from what it is."

"It ought to--yet it doesn't seem to."

"It ought to, certainly. If you believe this life is only the
portal to another of much greater importance, then--well, there you
are. Nothing matters but trying to make everybody else believe
t, too. But as a matter of fact, the people who do believe it, or
think they do, seem to me just as concentrated on this life and
just as much out to get the very best they can from it, and wring
it dry, as I am, who reckon it's all."

"They believe as a matter of course, and don't seem to realize how