"When you teach children that life here below is nothing to the life above, that to be visible is nothing in comparison to being invisible, that to be a human being is far inferior to being an angel, that to live is not by any means equal to being dead, is that the way to teach them to view life properly, or to love life, to gain courage for life, vigor for work, and patriotism?"
"Ah, in that way! Why, that is our duty to them later."
"Later, my dear lady? After all this dust has settled upon their souls?"
She turned away from me, assumed her old position, stared fixedly at the ceiling, and became absorbed in thought.
"Why do you use the word dust?" she began presently.
"By the word dust I mean chiefly that which has been, but which now having become disintegrated, floats about and settles in vacant places."
She remained silent a little while.
"I have read of dust which carries the poison from putrified matter. You do not mean that, I suppose?"
There was neither irony nor anger in the tone, so I failed to understand at what she was aiming.