"Well, damn," said Reuben. Kate had watched the operation—vacantly and without chuckling.
"Uh? A'n't you hungry, Ru?"
"Damn again," said Reuben. "I am alway hungry. I own a tapeworm of the soul." He recaptured the bacon and popped it in his mouth. Ben was still merely looking puzzled. "'Twould appear that this morning I am penned up with mooncalves—even Kate won't laugh. And yet it's a fair day, a red sky last night." Kate turned her back with odd abruptness. And in his own dark privacy, it seemed to Reuben that he was like one who can behold the gathering of the crimson banners for Armageddon where others see only a flaming translation of natural clouds.
Something spoke then within him, so vividly that Reuben imagined at first he was recalling some remark of Mr. Welland's; but casting back, he felt certain that in their few meetings of the last weeks, the doctor had said no such thing: Learning begins now. Simply his own thought, taking on a verbalized form of uncommon clearness, of imperative power: LEARNING BEGINS NOW.
Ben had drifted back into his country of dream. Kate was, abnormally, not talking. Having breakfasted early as usual with Mr. Kenny, who had left for Boston, Mr. Hibbs was waiting in the schoolroom—perhaps not too impatiently, since work could always be done in odd moments on the immortality of the soul. The kitchen, not oppressed by dining-room demands of dignity, was rich with pleasant smells and the warmth of May. Reuben refilled his coffee cup.
If learning begins (ever) it must somehow begin with premises that will not betray. All men are mortal; Ben and I are men....
Death is the conclusion of known life. I am forced to doubt, what once upon a time I believed, that a knowable life continues in a heaven or hell; therefore I am forced to doubt, what once upon a time I did believe, that Ben (or I, or Mother, or honest Jan Dyckman) can continue beyond the conclusion we call death.
Knowledge (Mr. Welland said last Saturday) pertains to what can be proven by the carnal senses.
Faith is belief in a proposition that cannot be established by the carnal senses—("My faith is like that of a man on a cloudy day....") Faith cannot be supported by knowledge, for if proof is found the proposition becomes knowledge and faith is no longer relevant; if it be not found, the proposition comes not within the region of knowledge.
Hope and desire—(must you rattle those pots, Kate, at this especial mortal moment?)—hope and desire may derive partly from knowledge, but cannot possess the force of it, for they are directed to the future, which does not exist. Therefore faith, hope and desire are all in the same class: to say that once upon a time I had faith in a heaven is no more than to say that I desired it, or hoped for it, or was told I ought to desire it—all without knowledge.