‘Yes; about dying. She says she has a presentiment that she won’t live. Poor Agatha! When she talks like that, it is strange indeed.’
Leaving the house together, Bradley and Alma entered Regent’s Park. Their way lay right across, towards the shady sides of Primrose Hill, where Miss Combe was then residing. The day was fair and sunny, and there was an unusual number of pleasure-seekers and pedestrians in the park. A number of boys were playing cricket on the spaces allotted for that recreation, nursemaids and children were sprinkled everywhere, and near the gate of the Zoological Gardens, which they passed, a brass band was merrily performing. Bradley’s heart was light, and he looked round on the bright scene with a kindling eye, in the full pride of his physical strength and intellectual vigour.
‘After all,’ he said, ‘those teachers are wise who proclaim that health is happiness. What a joyful world it would be if everyone were well and strong.’
‘Ah yes!’ said his companion. ‘But when sickness comes——’
She sighed heavily, for she was thinking of her friend Agatha Combe.
‘I sometimes think that the sum of human misery is trifling compared to that of human happiness,’ pursued the clergyman. ‘Unless one is a downright pessimist, a very Schopenhauer, surely one must see that the preponderance is in favour of enjoyment. Look at these ragged boys—how merry they are! There is not so much wretchedness in the world, perhaps, as some of us imagine.’
She glanced at him curiously, uncertain whither his thoughts were tending. He speedily made his meaning plain.
‘Religion and Sorrow have hitherto gone hand in hand, vanishing through the gate of the grave. But why should not Religion and Joy be united this side the last mystery? Why should not this world be the Paradise of all our dreams?’
‘It can never be so, Ambrose,’ replied Alma, ‘until we can abolish Death.’
‘And we can do that in a measure; that is to say, we can abolish premature decay, sick ness, disease. Look what Science has done in fifty years! More than other-worldliness has done in a thousand! When Death comes gently, at the natural end of life, it generally comes as a blessing—as the last sacrament of peace. I think if I could live man’s allotted term, useful, happy, loving and beloved, I could be content to sleep and never wake again.’