“I prayed last night,” said Ashton. He added somberly, “And now we are both going to the devil.”
“No,” said Blake, with no less earnestness. “There is no devil––there is no room for a devil in all the universe. What man calls evil is ignorance,––his ignorance of those primeval forces of nature which he has yet to chain; his ignorance of those higher qualities in his own nature which, if known, would prevent him from wronging others and would enable him to bring happiness to himself and others.” 321
“You say that!” cried Ashton. “You can mock! You do not believe in hell!”
Blake smiled grimly. “What do you call this?––But you mean a hell hereafter. I believe this: If, when we pass into the Unknown, we continue to exist as individual consciousnesses, then we carry with us the heaven and the hell that we have each upbuilt for ourselves.”
“God will not let you escape,” stated Ashton. “You will pass from this hell of water into the hell of fire and brimstone.”
“Have it your own way,” said Blake. “I lived one summer in Death Valley. The other place can’t be much hotter.”
He climbed up the ledges and planted the level firmly on its tripod above the high-water mark of the spring floods. He called down to Ashton: “Hate to leave the old monkey up here; but it will serve as a memento of our present visit, when we come down again to locate the tunnel head.”
“How can it be that we shall ever come down again?” replied Ashton. “It is impossible––for we shall never go up.”
Blake jumped down the ledges to him and pointed to the column of smoke on the lofty heights.
“Look there,” he said. “That is where we are going, if there is any possible way to go. An optimist 322 would stand here and wait, certain that wings would soon sprout for him to fly up; a pessimist would sit down and quit. An optimist is a fool; a pessimist is a worse fool.”