pouring in upon him, as if Muddle itself were going to swallow him
up! Here am I just beginning to get a little start in honester ways,
when up comes the ugly head of the said doubt, swelling itself more
and more to look like a fact--namely, that after this world there is
nothing for us--nothing at all to be had anyhow--that as we came so
we go--into life, out of life--that, having been nothing before, we
shall be nothing after! The flowers come back in the spring, and the
corn in the autumn, but they ain't the same flowers or the same
corn. They're just as different as the new generations of men."

"There's no pretence that we come back either. We only think we
don't go into the ground, but away somewhere else."

"You can't prove that."

"No."

"And you don't know anything about it!"

"Not much--but enough, I think."

"Why, even those that profess to believe it, scoff at the idea of an
apparition--a ghost!"

"That's the fault of the ghosts, I suspect--or their reporters. I
don't care about them myself. I prefer the tale of one who, they
say, rose again, and brought his body with him."

"Yes; but he was only one!"