A. ——.
J. "Would you agree to live your eighty years over again forever?"
A. I once heard our acquaintance, Chew, of Philadelphia, say, "he should like to go back to twenty-five, to all eternity;" but I own my soul would start and shrink back on itself at the prospect of an endless succession of Boules de Savon, almost as much as at the certainty of annihilation. For what is human life? I can speak only for one. I have had more comfort than distress, more pleasure than pain ten to one, nay, if you please, an hundred to one. A pretty large dose, however, of distress and pain. But after all, what is human life? A vapor, a fog, a dew, a cloud, a blossom, a flower, a rose, a blade of grass, a glass bubble, a tale told by an idiot, a Boule de Savon, vanity of vanities, an eternal succession of which would terrify me almost as much as annihilation.
J. "Would you prefer to live over again, rather than accept the offer of a better life in a future state?"
A. Certainly not.
J. "Would you live again rather than change for the worse in a future state, for the sake of trying something new?"
A. Certainly yes.
J. "Would you live over again once or forever, rather than run the risk of annihilation, or of a better or a worse state at or after death?"
A. Most certainly I would not.
J. "How valiant you are!"