‘I will not hear of it,’ I said, interrupting him, and he was forced to yield.
‘No, Charley,’ I said again; ‘I must just bear it. Harder things have been borne, and men have got through the world and out of it notwithstanding. If there isn’t another world, why should we care much for the loss of what must go with the rest?—and if there is, why should we care at all?’
‘Very fine, Wilfrid! but when you come to the practice—why, the less said the better.’
‘But that is the very point: we don’t come to the practice. If we did, then the ground of it would be proved unobjectionable.’
‘True;—but if the practice be unattainable—’
‘It would take much proving to prove that to my—dissatisfaction I should say; and more failure besides, I can tell you, than there will be time for in this world. If it were proved, however—don’t you see it would disprove both suppositions equally? If such a philosophical spirit be unattainable, it discredits both sides of the alternative on either of which it would have been reasonable.’
‘There is a sophism there of course, but I am not in the mood for pulling your logic to pieces,’ returned Charley, still pacing up and down the room.
In sum, nothing would come of all our talk but the assurance that the volume was equally irrecoverable with the sword, and indeed with my poor character—at least, in the eyes of my immediate neighbours.
{Illustration: I SAT DOWN AGAIN BY THE FIRE TO READ, IN MY GREAT-GRANDMOTHER’S CHAIR.}