put you off.

"I am going to answer your question now. I am going to tell you how and
why I believe that she is neither lost nor dead, but a living and
immortal spirit. For this, nothing less than this, is my absolute
assurance, the conviction which I ask you to share.

"But stop, let us go back. Let us assume nothing. Let us reason it all
out carefully from the beginning. Let me forget that I am her lover. Let
me be stiff; and slow, and formal as a logician, while I prove that my
darling lives for ever. And you, follow me carefully, to see if I slip.
Forget what ineffable thing she is to you; forget what it is to you that
she lives. Do not let your eyes fill; do not let your brain swim. It
would be madness to believe it if it is not true. Listen, then:--
You know that men speak of human beings, taken singly, as individuals.
It is taken for granted in the common speech that the individual is the
unit of humanity, not to be subdivided. That is, indeed, what the
etymology of the word means. Nevertheless, the slightest reflection will
cause any one to see that this assumption is a most mistaken one. The
individual is no more the unit of humanity than is the tribe or family;
but, like them, is a collective noun, and stands for a number of distinct
persons, related one to another in a particular way, and having certain
features of resemblance. The persons composing a family are related both
collaterally and by succession or descent, while the persons composing an
individual are related by succession only. They are called infancy,
childhood, youth, manhood, maturity, age, and dotage.

"These persons are very unlike one another. Striking physical, mental,
and moral differences exist between them. Infancy and childhood are
incomprehensible to manhood, and manhood not less so to them. The youth