"But why,"—he asked—"do you want to write a novel? Why not write a real book?"
"What do you call a real book, old David?" demanded Reay, looking down upon him with a sudden piercing glance.
Helmsley was for a moment confused. He was thinking of such books as Carlyle's "Past and Present"—Emerson's "Essays" and the works of Ruskin. But he remembered in good time that for an old "basket-maker" to be familiar with such literary masterpieces might seem strange to a wide-awake "journalist," therefore he checked himself in time.
"Oh, I don't know! I believe I was thinking of 'Pilgrim's Progress'!" he said.
"'Pilgrim's Progress'? Ah! A fine book—a grand book! Twelve years and a half of imprisonment in Bedford Jail turned Bunyan out immortal! And here am I—not in jail—but free to roam where I choose,—with twenty pounds! By Jove! I ought to be greater than Bunyan! Now 'Pilgrim's Progress' was a 'novel,' if you like!"
"I thought,"—submitted Helmsley, with the well-assumed air of a man who was not very conversant with literature—"that it was a religious book?"
"So it is. A religious novel. And a splendid one! But humanity's gone past that now—it wants a wider view—a bigger, broader outlook. Do you know—" and here he stopped in the middle of the rugged winding street, and looked earnestly at his companion—"do you know what I see men doing at the present day?—I see them rushing towards the verge—the very extreme edge of what they imagine to be the Actual—and from that edge getting ready to plunge—into Nothingness!"
Something thrilling in his voice touched a responsive chord in Helmsley's own heart.
"Why—that is where we all tend!" he said, with a quick sigh—"That is where I am tending!—where you, in your time, must also tend—nothingness—or death!"
"No!" said Reay, almost loudly—"That's not true! That's just what I deny! For me there is no 'Nothingness'—no 'death'! Space is full of creative organisms. Dissolution means re-birth. It is all life—life:—glorious life! We live—we have always lived—we shall always live!" He paused, flushing a little as though half ashamed of his own enthusiasm—then, dropping his voice to its normal tone he said—"You've got me on my hobby horse—I must come off it, or I shall gallop too far! We're just at the top of the street now. Shall I leave you here?"