"Oh, no, sir, this is a tenet held by the wisest and most admirable of men."
"I see: it was some other man who told you all these drolleries about the eternal importance of mankind," the head observed, with an unaccountable slackening of interest. "I see: and again, you may notice that the cows and the sheep and the chickens, also, resent extinction strenuously."
"But these are creatures of the earth, sir, whereas there is about at any rate some persons a whiff of divinity. Come now, do you not find it so?"
The head looked graver. "Yes, Manuel, most young people have in them a spark which is divine, but it is living that snuffs this out of all of you, by and large, without bothering Grandfather Death to unpeel spirits like bananas. No, the most of you go with very little spirit, if any, into the grave, and assuredly with not enough spirit to last you forever. No, Manuel, no, I never quarrel with religion, because it is almost the strongest ally I have, but these religious notions rather disgust me sometimes, for if men were immortal then Misery would be immortal, and I could never survive that."
"Now you are talking nonsense, sir," said Manuel, stoutly, "and of all sorts of nonsense cynical nonsense is the worst."
"By no means," replied the head, "since, plainly, it is far worse nonsense to assert that omnipotence would insanely elect to pass eternity with you humans. No, Manuel, I am afraid that your queer theory, about your being stuffed inside with permanent material and so on, does not very plausibly account for either your existence or mine, and that we both stay riddles without answers."
"Still, sir," said Manuel, "inasmuch as there is one thing only which all death's ravishings have never taken from life, and that thing is the Misery of earth—"
"Your premiss is indisputable, but what do you deduce from this?"
Manuel smiled slowly and sleepily. "I deduce, sir, that you, also, who have not ever been dead, cannot possibly be certain as to what happens when one is dead. And so I shall stick to my own opinion about the life to come."
"But your opinion is absurd, on the face of it."